


The Wall Between Us

by coccinelle_et_chaton



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Angst, BUT IT WILL COME AT A PAINFUL PRICE, F/M, LOTSO' ANGST, LadyNoir - Freeform, Lukanette, Marichat, adrigami, chat blanc and the finale broke me so if i suffur you have to suffer with me, ladrien, miraculous ladybug s3, ml spoilers, slowburn adrinette, tears. the price is tears., yes there will be some love square
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-05 15:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21419947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coccinelle_et_chaton/pseuds/coccinelle_et_chaton
Summary: Marinette is left to pick up the pieces after losing her chance with Adrien and having Master Fu give up his memories to protect the Miraculous Box. She struggles to find her ground as the new Guardian, and when it all becomes too much, finds unexpected support in Luka Couffaine. Simultaneously, Adrien is learning how to navigate his emotions and slowly begins to realize important truths about his feelings for Kagami, Marinette, and Ladybug. Will Marinette and Adrien be able to sort through their feelings and do what's best for the Miraculous team?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 57
Kudos: 246





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HOLD ONTO YOUR PANTS 'CAUSE HERE COMES THE ANGST.   
Yo. I did the thing. I wrote the words. Expect nothing of this fic, though. You know me. I'm the president of never finishing a fic and updating every other year lol (I'M SORRY I DON'T HAVE ANY IDEAS TO CONTINUE ATP AND TALES OF THE WIELDERS OK??). This will be a multi-chapter fic but I'll try to keep it short and sweet 'cause, ya know, my short attention span.   
Also this didn't come out as angsty as I normally write and I blame my antidepressants. Boo.   
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it. I wrote it with a lot of love and a desire for fandom tears. <3

She had snapped. The realization dawned on her the way one realizes they’ve broken a bone: with a sharp gasp, a moment of suspense as one waits for the consequence, and then, an unimaginable pain. The truth that had been wearing her down since the moment those earrings appeared in her room finally came out. It was a stubborn truth: now it had managed to wrestle its way into the open, it refused to go back into the shadows. 

Marinette couldn’t contain herself. A cracked dam only holds on for so long. The worst part was that she seldom ever faltered, and now that she did, there was no one to catch her fall. Not Chat Noir, not Master Fu. Not Alya, or her parents, and in a way, the fact that she could only talk to Tikki about what she was feeling made it even worse. It’s not that she belittled her friendship with the kwami, but sometimes she wished she had someone she could talk to. Someone who would be able to wrap their arms around her and told her it would be okay. 

She sniffed again as she muffled her moans by biting into her jacket. She choked. She shivered. 

A sob escaped her as she opened her palm to reveal the earrings. She had taken them off after coming back from defeating Chloe. 

No, she wouldn’t give them up. After all, even if she wanted to, she was now the only person who could bestow the responsibility of the Ladybug onto someone else. Either way, she was caught up in this. 

“Marinette, are you okay?” 

“Not now, Tikki.”

“But--.”

“_Please_. I need to be alone. Just... just give me a moment.”

Tikki floated down to Marinette’s room without question, hearing how Marinette started to cry as soon as she was out of sight. 

Mari looked at the stars with a cloudy vision, catching a certain cat vaulting merrily through the Parisian rooftops from the corner of her eye. 

She crumbled down, not being able to know what made her so incredibly sad. She was heartbroken and paralyzed with terror knowing Hawkmoth was lurking. That’s another reason why she took the earrings off. If worse came to worst, at least he wouldn’t catch her with them on. 

She choked again, enraged at the fact she couldn’t even grief properly. She couldn’t _do _anything! There was always the Miraculous to think about, and now she was the _guardian_. The succession could not have had happened with poorer timing. She felt weak, naked. For the first time ever, the mask had given her a taste of the kind of sacrifice it required, and Marinette wasn’t sure she would be strong enough not to lose herself in it. 

It had taken Master Fu from her, due to her mistakes. It had taken Chat Noir’s affection, because duty demanded her to force herself against her instincts. It had taken Adrien, because she couldn’t be a regular girl feeling a regular crush. She had to keep herself in check. 

“I can’t do this,” she muttered. “I can’t--.” 

Rocking herself on the ground, she cried herself to sleep. 

Her mother found her early in the morning and shook her awake. “Marinette, what are you doing sleeping in the balcony?”

“Hmm?”

It took Marinette a moment to realize where she was, what had happened. “I’m okay mom,” she replied with a raspy voice. “I was just tired.” 

Sabine glanced at her daughter with preoccupation. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

The next day, everything felt heavier, dimmer. It felt as if her body wasn’t actually hers, rather a corpse she was commanding. 

_Sit up. Push the covers away with the left hand. Slide the legs to the right. Stand. Put left foot to the front, now the right..._

She arrived late to school that day. 

“Marinette...” Madame Bustier said, with a resigned sigh. “If you show up late again, I’ll have to put you in detention, you know that, right?”

Monotonously, she replied. “Yes, Madame Bustier. I’m sorry. I will try to do better.”

She marched to her seat, diligently avoiding the sight of the blond sitting at the front of the class. 

“Hey girl,are you okay?” Alya whispered. 

“Yeah.”

Alya gave her a concerned look. “Did you hear about...?”

“Yes. I’m fine, Alya. We can talk later. I already came in late, I need to catch up.” 

Alya’s stomach sank and her throat closed. Marinette wasn’t fooling her. She knew she was hurting; she knew because she was also hurting for her. 

As soon as the final bell rang, Marinette picked up her things and was the first to walk out the door. 

“Is she okay?” Nino asked Alya. 

Alya shook her head. “I’m worried about her.” 

“Maybe we can give her a house call later?”

“That’s the thing, Nino.” 

Alya produced her phone to show the recent conversation with Marinette:

_“Hey girl! Do you wanna hang out later?”_

_“I can’t. I haven’t started the essay we have to turn in tomorrow.”_

_“Oh! Yeah, I’m not done with it yet either lol. Should we work on it together? :D”_

_“You know that never works with me, I always get distracted.”_

_“Yeah haha. I know :P But hey! Tomorrow’s Friday. There’s that movie you wanted to watch. Maybe we can go.”_

_“Thanks Alya, but I have to help my parents at the bakery.” _

“Wow,” Nino said. “Is it bad that I read it in like, a robot voice? She didn’t even throw in an emoji. Not even one. That girl never actually writes. Let alone actually like, writing properly.”

“I’m so worried about her. What if Hawkmoth akumatizes her!” 

“I’m sure Ladybug would save her,” Nino said warmly, squeezing her hand. “And you know, you have to give Marinette some credit. She’s a tough little nugget. I’m sure she’ll handle it. Especially if we support her.” 

Nino’s words gave Alya some peace of mind, but as the days passed, she came to learn that peace was misplaced. Marinette did not handle it. If anything, she was getting worse. She wasn’t sure someone could get sick of heartbreak, until she saw her arrive one day. 

She looked terrible. Pale, tired, anxious, sad. It was so obvious even Adrien noticed, and that was already a statement. By then, Marinette had been growing tired of people’s questions. If it wasn’t her parents, it was Alya. If it wasn’t Alya, it was the girls, if not them, then Nino, or Nathaniel, or Max. 

“Girl, we need to talk.” Alya had finally worked up the courage to confront her friend after she had practically fainted in the chemistry lab. It had caused quite the ruckus. When she came to her senses and was ready to stand up, the first thing she saw had been Adrien and Nino trying to pull her up. But in a gesture that took everyone by surprise, she flinched away from both, then got up by herself.

“This... this needs to stop. Look, I understand that you’re sad right now. I totally get it. I know that it’s painful, but you _have _to try to overcome it. For your sake.”

“What are you talking abo-- you think I’m sad because Adrien has a girlfriend now,” she whispered.

Alya was surprised at the ease with which she spoke of the subject. Marinette chuckled darkly. 

“Of course.” 

“And aren’t you?”

“It’s not just that. You wouldn’t understand...” she muttered. 

“Mari, don’t try to play hero. Please, I’m just trying to help you. It hurts to see you this way. I know how much you love him and--”

“That’s not what this is about! Why does everybody automatically assume that-- that, UGH!” she screamed, and caught herself a moment too late. 

Alya had tears in her eyes. “Then tell me!” she pleaded. “Let me help you. I don’t care what it is, I will help you. I promise.”

Marinette was simply not thinking. These days her emotions were the ones commanding her life. 

“You can’t help me. No one can.” 

She stormed off before Alya could follow her and rushed to her house, reaching her room just in time before she collapsed. She cried against her chaise, which is where the Miraculous Box rested.

“I HATE YOU!” she cried as rage surged through her, and threw the box across the room, spewing every single Miraculous on the ground. She immediately regretted her lash-out and precipitated herself on the floor, picking the jewelry as fast as she could and carefully putting them in their corresponding cushion. 

“I’m sorry...” she sobbed, hugging the box tightly and pressing her head against it. “I don’t know what to do...”

She felt Tikki’s tiny paws squeezing against her cheek. 

“You should not have to go through this alone, Marinette,” she said sadly. “I know you feel alone,” she continued, anticipating Marinette would try to refute her. “But I will help you in whatever way I can. So will Wayzz, Plagg. Everyone else.”

Marinette couldn’t bring herself to speak of her thankfulness, it all hurt too much, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

The next day after school, her parents intercepted her as she was making her way to seclude herself, she suspected, also in an attempt to get her to talk.

“Ep-pep-pep. Hold it, miss,” her dad said, opening a cupboard. 

Marinette sighed. Great, now she also was in trouble with her parents. 

“Don’t you think for a moment we haven’t noticed how you’ve been acting.” He produced a thin box wrapped in sparkly pink.

Marinette was taken by surprise. She took the box and carefully unwrapped it, revealing the latest version of Mega Strike. 

“Thanks, dad,” she said, trying her best to show excitement, even though realistically, she couldn’t find it in her.

“You’ve been working so hard lately we thought you deserved a little treat,” her mom explained. “Your grades are excellent, you always make time to help us at the bakery... most importantly, we see what a wonderful woman you’re becoming. We know it can be hard to be young sometimes, but we want you to know we’re proud of you, Mari. You will always have us, no matter what happens.”

“Thanks mom,” she said, forcing herself to smile.

“What do you say we go for a round or two?” her dad said, squeezing her in a hearty hug. 

“I, uh... Maybe later dad, it’s been a long day and I have a lot of homework to catch up on.”

“On the weekend, maybe?” 

Marinette smiled at him. “Sure dad.” 

She walked away before giving them a chance to persuade her to stay. 

*** * ***

“Mrs. Cheng!” Alya said excitedly, rushing to the stand where Sabine and her husband were setting up their stand. They were participating in a street food festival. 

Sabine looked up and saw Marinette’s friends approaching. Alya, Nino, Adrien, and his girlfriend, whose name she didn’t know. 

“Hello dear! How are you?” 

“I’m good. You remember Adrien and Nino, right?” 

“Of course!” 

“And this is Kagami,” Alya said.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Kagami said, with a subtle bow. 

Sabine couldn’t help but notice the resemblance this girl had with her daughter. She tried not to judge Adrien. 

“Nice to meet you, Kagami.” 

She noticed the group, but especially Alya and Adrien were scanning the stand for Marinette. Now, she expected this from Alya but Adrien’s interest did not sit well with her. In either case, she didn’t show it.

“Marinette’s not here today,” she said. 

“Oh, really?” Adrien said, explicitly disappointed.

“I was hoping she’d be here,” Alya said. “She didn’t answer my texts.”

Grateful for Alya’s concern, but also urged to protect her daughter, she said. “I’ll tell her to call you back after she returns from her date, dear.”

This had the intended effect on Adrien--he seemed taken aback, but Alya, Sabine knew, would be able to tie some strings together and figure out that in fact, Marinette was not in a date but rather locked up in her room, refusing to talk to anyone. 

Sabine offered cookies to the group and as they slid by onto the next stand, Sabine beckoned Alya to stay for a while longer.

“May I talk to you for a second, Alya?” 

“Sure, Mrs. Cheng. What’s up?”

“It’s about Marinette.”

“Oh...”

“Has she talked to you lately?”

“No, ma’am, I swear I didn’t even know she was dating anyone. She’s been... quite absent.” 

Sabine smiled kindly. “She is not. It was a moment of weakness,” Sabine admitted. “I know that boy did not mean to hurt her, but it simply makes me angry that he won’t stay away from her.”

“I understand,” Alya said. “I’ll talk to him about it.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. These things happen, it’s no-one’s fault. Marinette just needs to learn. But actually, it would mean a lot to me if you could talk to Marinette instead. We... we don’t know how to get to her. She simply won’t listen to us, maybe she’ll listen to you. We’re worried.”

Alya nodded. “I’ll try ma’am.” 

Back at the house, Marinette found herself prepping her room for something Master Fu would probably advise against: She decided to complete the twenty-four hour fast Master Fu failed to complete, when he created the sentimonster. Her parents would be out of the house for exactly twenty-four hours. They had the food festival and then they had to drive up north to cater for a wedding. 

She had cleared the floor of her bedroom, lit candles and incense, and placed a mat in front of her spotted Miraculous Box. 

She sat down and sighed heavily. “Okay. It’s just you and me now.” 

Her phone buzzed just before she started meditating. It was Alya. She ignored it. It buzzed a second time, it was Adrien. She reached for the phone and turned it off. 

“Just you and me.” 

If she was going to be the Guardian, she was going to be a good one. No distractions. She crossed her legs and rested her arms on them. Twenty-four hours of guardianship. That was the test. Twenty-four hours of not being Marinette, or Ladybug, but the Guardian of the last Miraculous Box. 

“Just you and me.” 

This wouldn’t be Master Fu’s wish if he was there, but it gave Marinette a sense of direction. Things happened so abruptly, he left her barely with any wisdom, any real advice about how to be a good Guardian. All she had was his letter and her memories of him. Something he himself did not have any longer. 

She sighed and opened her eyes, fixing them on the box. How long had it been? An hour, maybe two? She was tempted to check her phone, but she fought against the urge. She needed to prove to herself she could do this. 

The first couple hours dragged by, and Marinette, inexperienced in the art of meditating as she was, had been assaulted by thoughts of grief, guilt, and inadequacy. She was pretty sure replaying the image of Adrien with Kagami over and over in her mind was most definitely not part of the exercise, but she couldn’t help it. She was at her own emotions’ mercy. Something, she recognized, was unacceptable now that she was the Guardian. 

Regret followed realization along with frustration and a certain feeling of entrapment. Then burden, a weight that pressed so hard on her shoulders she felt like she was sinking into the ground. Fear, a notion of blindness. Loneliness. Helplessness. 

She thought of everything she’d have to give up. Her friends, her family, her personal dreams. All had to come after the Miraculous. They all came second now, and like it or not, this was now her destiny. 

As she tried to ride yet another wave of negative feelings, she watched as an akumatized butterfly flew in through her window and tentatively poised itself on top of the box, as if waiting on Marinette’s reaction. A surge of rage went through her, thinking how this was all Hawkmoth’s fault. The butterfly approached, no doubt sensing the increasing intensity of her emotions, but just as it was about to touch her skin, she firmly said, “No.” 

She breathed, calmed herself, and slowly returned her attention to the box. The butterfly flew around her for a couple of minutes, but eventually left. Marinette scoffed at the sheer audacity. She had to give it to Hawmoth, few people were as overconfident as him.

The brief encounter with the butterfly readjusted her state of mind, replacing the self-pity for an abnegated dutifulness. She welcomed the burden but no longer grieved what she was exchanging for it. There was no one she could turn to anymore, and that meant she could only rely on herself to keep the Miraculous safe, and more importantly, to defeat Hawkmoth. This realization triggered a deeply hidden sense of self-sufficiency; the certain truth that, regardless of what was happening now, she knew she was going to be able to sort through it. She was the Guardian, she was Ladybug. Of course she’d be able to do it.

There was no room for failure. She had to. 

*** * ***

It had been a few months since she had become Guardian and the new normalcy in Marinette’s life had settled in. Her classmates and friends slowly began to accept the fact that, for some reason, she had become more secretive and absent. They had stopped trying to pull her into conversations, inviting her to events. This suited Marinette very well. She spent most of her days absorbed in her thoughts of the best way to protect the box. Leaving it at home made her feel restless and carrying it around was an accident waiting to happen. She needed the time alone.

Curiously, her best ideas usually came to her when she rode the metro, so she made a point of doing it as often as she could. She especially enjoyed trips at peak hours, when the multitude of Parisians drowned her in anonymity. In a way, it felt safe. If there was nothing to do for the afternoon, she’d get into the metro with no particular intention to arrive anywhere and would stay there for hours. 

It was one such afternoon that she saw a certain couple get into the same train as her a couple of doors down. Blood rushed to her head in anxiety, radiating heat as she frantically looked for a way to escape before they noticed her. It was too late. The doors had already shut, and the train was moving. It wasn’t a commuting time, so the wagon was empty. She knew one of them would eventually try to come up to her. In fact, Adrien had already caught glimpse of her and could hear him quietly tell Kagami he had spotted her. 

She put her headphones on and turned her back on them, pretending she hadn’t seen them. She heard the pair approaching her just as the train had reached the next station. 

The doors couldn’t open fast enough.

“Hey Ma--!”

Marinette bolted out the train as soon as the doors slid open and briskly walked away in search of a crowd that would subtly mask her disappearance. 

She paced around the lobby of the station catching her breath and calming herself, sure that she had lost them as they could not have possibly be headed for a perfectly ordinary neighborhood as where she had gotten down. Except she didn’t. Out of the corner of her eye, the pair’s heads slowly surfaced through the escalator, causing Marinette to swear under her breath and dart towards the exit praying to all the gods in her jewelry box to get rid of them. 

“Where’s Mr. Agreste’s house arrest when you need it the most?” she exclaimed to herself as she ran down the avenue and went into the first shop she came across to find cover. A sickly-sweet strawberry scent filled up her nose as the bell on the door chimed to announce her arrival. 

“Ma-Ma-Marinette?” Luka stuttered, this time completely intentionally. 

Marinette gasped and turned around to see Luka, blushing brighter than a stop light, as he clasped his delivery boy helmet. 

It took Marinette a few seconds to realize why Luka was so embarrassed and why the person he was delivering to gasped in shock when she entered. But then she looked around and the first thing she saw were what she could only assume were adult toys. 

An unfortunate sheep-like wail escaped her mouth as she tripped back on a rack of condom boxes. 

“What are you doing here?” she exclaimed, squirming at the small cardboard boxes that fell on her lap. 

Luka, similarly, had lost his composure, to put it kindly. “I don’t know! I’m -- Pizza!” He pointed at the boxes. “What are YOU doing here?” he cried. “Oh my god. WHAT are you doing here?” 

The clerk laughed. It was always a good day when teenagers entered the store. Their reactions never failed to entertain her.

“Don’t-- Forget I was here! FORGET THIS EVER HAPPENED!” Marinette cried, just as the bell chimed again.

“I think she went in here.” Unmistakably, that was Adrien.

“Adrien, I don’t think she’ll appreciate you following in here...” 

At this point, all Marinette could remit to was to scream incoherently, begging for death. “OH MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!” 

She ran out the shop, swearing like a sailor, wondering how much money it would take to move away from Paris. 

“What--.” Realization slowly dawned on Adrien. His reaction was identical to that of Marinette. He had never been in a sex shop before. Neither had Kagami, but she was more amused at Adrien than shocked by the experience. Luka, knowing this pair of nerds didn’t have it in them to make any damaging assumptions about why they were both there, chased after Mari without any explanation. The pizza money was left untouched on the counter, without him realizing.

He found Marinette sitting by herself on a bench by the river. She was huddled in a ball, with her face buried in the space between her knees and her chest. Luka stood there for a second as his thoughts caught up with the rest of his body. Suddenly it had dawned on him, he had no reason to come after Marinette like this other than the sheer and urgent need to explain himself and to let Marinette know he was certainly NOT buying anything in the store. The idea seemed a little stupid now that they weren’t surrounded by condom boxes.

“Uh…”

She looked up tentatively, shyly resurfacing from her makeshift hideout. She groaned and tried to bury herself deeper.

“What are you doing here?” she complained with a muffled voice. “Leave!”

“I… uh.” He scratched his head. “Okay.”

Luka disposed himself to leave but turned on his heel abruptly. “Look, I just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t in that store to buy anything. I’m not like, some sort of pervert, or anything. I don’t do—I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with sex—I MEAN. No. I mean, it’s not wrong but like, at our age… I don’t want to have sex! I mean I like you but—but… I was just there to deliver a pizza! Oh my god, I’m gonna go die in a hole now…”

Marinette turned to him with a mildly disturbed expression, albeit quite amused. “You ramble like a broken faucet.”

Luka was completely red in the face. “Well, look who’s talking!”

She pressed her lips in a bit of a grimace. “Fair enough.”

“Anyway. That’s all I wanted to say. So… yeah.” He nodded firmly and then turned to leave, though once again changing his mind. “And actually, why were you there? And… are you okay?”

Luka’s question robbed Marinette of her breath.

“I’m fine, Luka,” she said quietly. “Or… at least better.”

“Jules and the girls keep asking about you when they hang out at the house. They—we were a little worried about you.”

“That’s very sweet of you. But I’m okay, really.”

Luka gazed at her for a moment and tentatively walked closer. “Look, uh, I don’t know what it is you’re dealing with. Everyone thinks you’re drifting away because… well, you know, _that guy_. But it didn’t seem like that to me that time I saw you at the park. All I’m saying is that whatever responsibility it is you have… well, you can share it, you know? With whoever it is you trust. Alya, Juleka, the girls… me. You’re not alone, Mari.”

Marinette’s throat closed painfully as she tried to keep the tears as close to herself as she could. Nonetheless, her eyes inevitably clouded, if only ever so slightly.

“Thank you, Luka.” She sighed and fixed her eyes in the river. What came out of her mouth next, came against her better judgement. She didn’t know exactly what prompted her. Perhaps the fact that something about Luka’s unfiltered honesty and quiet steadiness stirred trust in her. Or maybe, the fact that she desperately wanted to confide in someone, knowing that there was no one she could trust with her secrets.

She muttered, “Unfortunately this is not the kind of responsibility I can share with anyone.”

“Are you like, in the mafia, or something? In the macaroon mafia?”

Marinette cackled. “The macaroon mafia is not a thing, Luka. I would know, trust me.”

He shrugged and smirked, “Could be!” He struggled to push back the amusing image of tiny Marinette, with her pigtails and pink clothes, holding an equally pink gun in a standoff with some other baker.

“But… whatever it is, if it makes it easier on you, you can trust me. I swear I won’t judge.” A second, more obscure thought crossed his mind. One that suddenly made his stomach churn. “Wait. Is the “responsibility” the reason you were in the sex shop?” he shrieked.

“What?”

“Oh my god. Marinette, listen to me.” He grabbed her by her shoulders. “Whoever is making you--.”

“Luka, I’m not a child slave, Jesus Christ!” She shook him off herself and then sighed. “I went into the shop by accident,” she said quietly, deciding to take him up on his word about confiding in him. “I… I was riding the metro just for fun and then I saw… well, you know who I saw. And I tried to get off the train before they noticed me, but it didn’t work. So, I went into the first shop I could find.”

She waited anxiously to see how Luka would respond to the story.

“Huh. I also ride the metro for fun,” he said. “It’s good inspiration.”

Marinette smiled at him brightly. He did not know how much she needed to hear that.

“I get it. Sometimes you just need to be by yourself.”

“That’s right,” Marinette said with a hearty nod.

Unqueued, the sound of Adrien and Kagami approaching, disturbed their comfortable silence. Marinette could have sworn Luka swore under his breath. He muttered something about certain people not knowing how to read the scene. Although she didn’t share the annoyance, she was thankful for the support.

Adrien and Kagami struggled to catch their breath as they arrived at the bench where Luka and Marinette were. Marinette, noticing that Luka’s annoyance at the pair was getting stronger now that she had told him her part of the story, decided to take ahold of the interaction.

“Adrien, Kagami,” she sounded surprised, to Luka’s own bewilderment. “What a nice coincidence, what are you doing here?”

Adrien gave her a slightly disbelieving glance. “We were in the same—and then—the shop—your wallet.”

Adrien produced Marinette’s wallet from his coat: A small squared thing she had made herself with pink-and-white polka-dotted fabric.

Marinette’s eyes widened as she dove into the pocket of her jacket, effectively finding nothing. She must have dropped it when she pulled out her headphones in the metro, and that’s why they chased after her. She felt slightly guilty for assuming other things.

“Thanks. That was… very nice of you.”

She took it and put it into her purse, noticing Adrien idled expectantly, as if hoping to strike a conversation. Anxiety began slowly bubbling in her insides. Between Luka growing annoyed, Kagami being evidently uncomfortable, and Adrien hopefully waiting her to disrupt the silence that had settled, she resolved to flee.

“So, I, uh… I should get going. See you.”

“Wait, I can walk you,” Luka said.

“We’re also not in a rush, right?” Adrien said. “We can walk with you guys, if you want.”

Luka threw an unappreciative glance at him, which took Adrien aback. Luka was friendly with him. He didn’t understand why he seemed like he didn’t want him there, especially when they were both friends with Marinette.

“No, thanks,” Marinette said. “I…” She couldn’t think of a good enough excuse to get rid of the trio. “I have to… go… you know? Heh. I’m busy with… bakery things and uh... you know, homework, and things. So busy.”

Catching on the drift, Luka intervened. “Ah, responsibilities. Yes, hate those.”

“Correct! So… yes. See ya!”

Marinette rushed out of the scene, leaving Luka to deal with the aftermath of a confused Adrien and a restless Kagami.

Luka knew better than to go poking around his nose in things that were not his business, but he really couldn’t help himself this time. Adrien’s utter obliviousness complemented by the fact Kagami evidently knew exactly how and why Marinette seemed so uneasy around them frustrated him beyond belief.

Against his better judgement, he dropped all pleasantries and snapped, “You know, you two should leave her alone.”

He walked away before Adrien had the opportunity to ask why, and Kagami, the chance to remark that they had bumped across her by accident.

Adrien went home confused and afraid that afternoon after his date with Kagami. He did not know where all this distance was coming from, why Marinette was acting so cold all of a sudden, nor why Luka and even Alya to some extent, were so stern with him.

“Kagami, did I do something wrong?”

She smiled at him kindly. “Why would you ask that?”

He shrugged. “It felt like Marinette and Luka didn’t want us around.”

Kagami didn’t have the courage to explain that his intuition had been correct, nor the reason why. “We probably just interrupted them. We would’ve acted the same if it was us.”

That left Adrien even more confused.

So, Marinette was dating Luka? Was that why they were acting coldly? It didn’t seem right. There must be something else. Why would them dating make them reject him?

Unexplainable words had materialized out of nowhere, that now demanded to be read between the lines of what went on around him. He was scared that there was no one he could ask without being judged. Normally, Nino or Ladybug would be the one to guide him through these knots and tangles of everyday life, but even Nino nowadays was a little less patient with his questions, and Ladybug… Well, it still hurt to talk to her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette struggles to adjust to the new dynamic between Chat and her and desperately looks for support. Luka rises up as an unexpectedly good listener, and even better advisor.

Ch. 2

The first few times, he gave her the benefit of doubt. Marinette was Marinette, after all. She was always onto something. But now it was evident she was evading him. Adrien was certain. The fact that he couldn’t figure out why made it even worse. His self-assurance had seen better days, to say the least.

She would decline invitations even to things he was sure they were her favorite, which begged the question of whether he knew his friend as well as he thought. He had invited her to tag along with Kagami and him to a fashion show, to a Jagged Stone concert, to an art gallery. Every time she said no, and every time it was a perfectly justifiable excuse. “I’m babysitting for Mrs. Chamak,” “I can’t, my family has an event in Le Mans, and they need the extra pair of hands,” “I would, but I promised Alya we would go shopping.”

The plausibility of her excuses and how easy they rolled off her tongue reminded him, in a weird way, of every time Ladybug declined his similarly well-meaning invitations. And he knew they were excuses, because they day he ran into her at the metro she was supposed to be in Le Mans. The thing was, Adrien knew she was entitled to her time, and if she just didn’t want to be with them, she could just say so. He didn’t understand why she lied and why her efforts to evade him were so obvious, so adamant.

These were the things that occupied Adrien one ordinary afternoon at school, when Nino had just about of his silence.

“Everything okay, dude?”

“Huh?”

Nino chuckled. “You haven’t said peep the whole lunch break.”

“Oh,” he said, finally aware. “I’m just a little confused about something. I’m trying to figure it out.”

Nino grinned at him and jabbed his ribs playfully. “Is this about Kagami?”

Adrien furrowed his brow. “Actually, it’s about Marinette.”

“Oh.” Nino donned a more serious expression. “What about her?”

“Well. Do you think she’s mad at me, or something?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s just that she’s been evading me lately and I’m not sure why. I wonder if I did something wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, bud. Marinette is just busy these days, I guess. She doesn’t even talk to Alya that much anymore. But I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Yes, but… you know the other day, when I bumped into her? I told you about that, right? That I came across her and she wasn’t even supposed to be in Paris that weekend. I invited her to hang out with Kagami and me and--.”

“I’m sorry, you did what now?” blurted Nino, evidently perplexed.

“I invited Marinette to hang out with Kagami and me.”

Nino sighed. “Oh, boy.”

“What?”

To make things worse, Alya had just joined them when Nino fell into the trickiest of silences.

“Why hello you two,” she said, cheerfully. “So, what’s the quiet about? You two look like you’re trying to solve a math problem.”

“Nothing,” Nino hurried to say, but Adrien gave him a look.

“I was asking Nino if he thinks Marinette is mad at me because I can’t figure out why she keeps evading me. I’ve been inviting her to hang out with Kagami and I but she always tells me she has something to do.”

He thought Alya might offer a more elaborate response, but to his surprise, she seemed angry.

“Maybe she just doesn’t _want_ to hang out with you, Adrien. If I were her, I sure wouldn’t want to be a third wheel between you and your girlfriend.”

Seeing in red, she disposed to walk away. But one last thought stopped her. She wasn’t done. “You should just leave her alone, you know?”

Dumbfounded, Adrien watched still how Alya walked away. Nino couldn’t help but feel bad for Adrien, but at the same time, he knew Alya’s frustration was not misplaced. His friend could sometimes be a little... oblivious of the impact of his actions.

“Fine. I’ll just ask her myself,” Adrien said, sounding definitive.

Nino could only imagine how much worse that conversation would go, so for the sake of everybody involved he intervened.

“She had a crush on you,” Nino said, as Adrien got up from his seat. “Marinette,” he added for his benefit.

He could see the gears in Adrien’s head turning as the fastest permissible speed, trying to process the meaning of what Nino just told him.

“What? She had a crush…on _me_?”

Nino sighed. “I’ll deny it if you ever mention it. And if you care about my personal safety you will _never_, _absolutely, under no circumstance_, mention it to either Alya or Marinette. But yes. Alya told me. Apparently, she had been crushing on you for quite long and she never seemed to find a good moment to tell you, or something? That’s what I gathered. Either way, when she saw that you were interested in Kagami, and then when she realized Kagami was interested in you, she gave it up.”

Adrien fell silent as he tried to decide how this information made him feel. It took him a moment to identify a discernible word to describe it. It wasn’t guilt, for not having known sooner. It also was not just disgust, for willing to overlook Kagami. It wasn’t just regret, for not having taken the time to know her better. It wasn’t sadness, for having lost the opportunity to follow his gut. It was certainly not happiness, for having his hunch proven. It was like taking a hit to the chest, one that blows the wind out of you and then leaves you sore and hollow. It was a mix of feelings that summed up to him lamenting knowing now, of all times, if ever.

“Do you think I made a wrong decision dating Kagami?”

“No. Of course not. Dating isn’t like going to the bakery and having to pick between chocolate cake or cheesecake and tossing a coin over it. It is something you do when you’re sure of your feelings, and if you are sure about how you feel about Kagami, then of course it’s not a bad decision and of course we all will be happy for you. All, including Marinette. With time, if you give her the space she needs.”

The bell rang, and with that, Nino’s wisdom.

“Thanks, Nino.”

“That’s what friends are for dude,” he said, smiling at him. “But seriously, stop following Marinette into sex shops.”

“That was an accident!”

\--

The timing of this revelation was unfortunate to say the least, and although it answered Adrien’s question, it also left him with many more he couldn’t even begin to frame. Questions of whether Marinette was evading the group because of him, and more importantly, whether he was completely, absolutely sure about what he felt for Kagami. The fact that he couldn’t answer that question with a rotund “yes, I know how I feel,” made him break a cold sweat.

Then there was the fact that, thanks to this revelation, many of Marinette’s behaviors seemed easily explainable now. Even more so, despite her not sitting behind him anymore, he was aware of her presence more than ever before. 

“Mme. Bustier, can I go to the toilet?” Marinette asked.

He had to pretend he was looking out the window when she caught glimpse of him as she walked by to the door when Mme. Bustier gave her clearance. He felt stupid and dwelled on the feeling long enough that he almost missed the notification on his phone warning of an Akuma attack.

The school trembled beneath his feet before he was able to find a way to dismiss himself. Immediately after, the emergency alarm went off, playing a loop of evacuation instructions in the background. He followed the crowd dutifully until the numbers were large enough that nobody would notice his absence and rushed to find a place to transform.

\--

It was a messy Akuma. There was no denying that, and it served no one if she didn’t manage to keep herself together, but truth was that ever since Master Fu left, every Akuma felt like the first one. Knowing that if things went wrong there was her and only her to blame put her on edge and prevented her from thinking straight. Her pace was sloppy, her planning half-thought. When Chat Noir arrived, she had been distracting the Akuma, at best. No plan was yet in place, and no idea of where the object might be.

The monster was an entity covered in a dark purple goo, which it used to materialize extra versions of itself every time Ladybug tried to hit it.

“Hello m’—What’s up, LB?”

Ladybug had just conjured her Lucky Charm when Chat Noir caught up to her as she took cover behind a chimney. She cursed loudly as she received the object: A pair of polka-dotted Miraculous jewelry box.

“No, no, no. Tikki!”

She grabbed chunks of her goo-covered bangs in frustration.

“Woah, woah… It’s okay, Ladybug. What’s wrong?”

She sighed. “It’s nothing.” She clipped the boxes to either side of her yo-yo belt. “I need to run a quick errand. Can you mind the Akuma for a few minutes? Maybe try to find where the object is.”

She left before giving Chat Noir the chance to deliver one of his well-meaning one-liner jokes.

She rushed back to her house and detransformed in her room, hurrying to reach for the Miraculous Box, which she kept deep inside her closet.

“Tikki, I already told you I don’t want to give out Miraculouses right now. I don’t feel ready.”

“I’m sorry, Marinette. But this is the only way you’ll defeat this Akuma.”

“Are you sure?”

Tikki nodded solemnly.

Marinette sighed and clicked in her security sequence, revealing the jewels and feeling the call of two in particular. She moaned.

“Are you sure you have time to pick new holders for those?”

Marinette gave Tikki a glare.

“Spots on,” she hissed.

Tikki did _not_ appreciate the tone.

Ladybug left the Dragon’s Miraculous next to Kagami’s water bottle—she was practicing her fencing in a park fortunately not too far away from where Anarka Couffaine anchored her ship and where Luka was undoubtedly practicing his music, allowing for Ladybug to deliver the Serpent’s Miraculous. In both cases, she only waited to see that they had noticed the box and trusted that they knew what to do from there.

Sure enough, Ryuuko and Viperion arrived at the scene shortly after herself, to find an exhausted Chat Noir, covered in head to toe with the Akuma’s black goo.

“Kagam—I mean Ryuuko! Hi!” Chat Noir said. “Hi Viperion. Glad you’re joining us, this Akuma is giving quite the fight.”

“Good to see ya again, Chat,” Viperion said.

“I thought you said they couldn’t use those Miraculous again,” Chat Noir whispered to Ladybug.

She also gave him a glare and whispered something about Plagg being just like Tikki.

“I’m just saying…”

“I know, okay? It’s dangerous. I’ve been putting it off. It’s the last time, just get off my back for a second!” Ladybug said with an aggressiveness that was unlike herself.

She propelled herself towards the monster without giving the others any instruction, not thinking straight, only guided by the sheer frustration of having to be in such a vulnerable state of mind. She attacked with ferocity, aiming for the chin. Chat Noir and the others could only watch as the monster swiftly swallowed her in one gulp.

Chat Noir gasped and felt as if someone jabbed and twisted his stomach with a sharp knife. Enraged, he was about to deliver a blow to the monster himself, but something stopped him. It dawned on him that with Ladybug gone, someone had to come up with a plan, to lead.

He gulped and pushed aside the paralyzing feeling of incompetence, for Ladybug’s sake.

“Viperion, we need a second chance,” he said.

Viperion only nodded and conjured his power. As soon as the scene reset, it played out just the same. And the same. And the same again.

“It’s no use,” Viperion said when Chat Noir unknowingly asked him to revert time for the fourth time. “It’s always the same outcome. Whatever makes her do that mistake isn’t a variable, it’s a constant.”

Ryuuko and Chat Noir looked at each other in a bit of a loss.

Viperion sighed. “Something’s up with her, she’ll keep repeating the mistake no matter what. We’re on our own.”

Chat Noir’s heart rata hitched up as he heard confirmation of what he suspected. Whatever was troubling his lad—his teammate, would have to be a conversation for another time.

“Alright, alright. So,” Chat Noir said. “What would Ladybug do? Think, think.”

“How does she usually come up with plans?” Ryuuko said.

Chat Noir peeked out from where the trio was hiding and scanned the scene. “Well, the one time I was Ladybug, she told me the first thing is to locate where the Akuma is, but this guy is just goo…

“Maybe it’s inside?” Ryuuko offered.

Chat Noir shook his head. “Ladybug is trapped in there. She would’ve found it.”

Ryuuko and Viperion looked at each other, thinking the same thing but both choosing to remain silent. Chat Noir had blind faith in Ladybug. Bringing up the possibility she might be dead was probably not in anyone’s best interest at the moment.

“I think we can play it by ear. I’ll be the distraction. Ryuuko, you try and wash away the goo. Viperion, you keep an eye for the Akuma but stay out of the fight in case we need you. Whoever finds the Akuma must keep it. Don’t break it, give it to me. Got it?”

They both nodded.

“Alright,” he said with a small huff. “Let’s do this!”

It took a couple of tries, some resets on Viperion’s part, but in the end Chat’s plan worked. Ryuuko washed away the goo and as she did, two things happened: First, she found that Ladybug was using her Lucky Charm to climb out of the monster through his mouth; second, Viperion identified the Akuma as a hairclip on the beast and had Chat Noir use his Cataclysm on it. With the victim rescued and the Akuma destroyed, all that was left was for Ladybug to revert everything back to normal.

“Pound it!” Chat Noir said to Ladybug and the others offering his fist. Viperion and Ryuuko reciprocated the celebratory gesture, but Ladybug greeted them with a smile and a friendly nod.

“Great job, guys.”

The feeling in Chat Noir’s stomach came back, the uneasiness, the hunch there was something bothering Ladybug.

She directed herself to Ryuuko and Viperion, “You know what to do.”

They fled, waving good-bye to Chat and each other, and as Ladybug disposed herself to follow Ryuuko, Chat Noir stopped her.

“Ladybug, wait!”

Ladybug sighed. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said, anticipating this is what the conversation would be about. “I’m really sorry, Chat. It won’t happen again.”

He would’ve taken the apology, if not for the fact that’s exactly the kind of words he offered his dad whenever he reprimanded him for something that was out of his control. Instantly, his hunch escalated to heightened worry.

“What? No. It’s okay, LB. Everybody makes mistakes, right?”

“I can’t make mistakes. I’m the Guardian.”

“It’s only human, LB,” he said softly, hoping he could comfort her but knowing that was probably not his place with the way things were between them, and all.

“How… how are you taking it?” he asked. “You… eh, the Guardian stuff and all of that. We can talk about it if you--.”

“Everything’s okay, Chat. Thanks for worrying but I’m fine. Anyway, I gotta go. Gotta retrieve the Miraculous from those kids before I transform back.”

She swung away before he could tell her she didn’t need to do everything by herself, that he could retrieve the Miraculous for her, if only she would trust him. That she could share the load with him if it ever became too heavy.

\--

Marinette found herself wishing the Akuma had struck later in the day rather than earlier, even considering how awfully it went. At least that way she would’ve had an excuse not to go to the picnic Alya had more or less harassed her into attending.

It was something Marinette’s group of friends had planned for well over a month and though she knew Alya would try her best to make her go she was hoping to come up with a last-minute excuse. No such luck. And it’s not that she didn’t want to hang out with her friends, but gatherings that extended beyond her immediate group usually also meant Adrien and Kagami would be there. Having to worry about her guardianship kept her mind off the whole ordeal, but that didn’t mean it was resolved. Having them in front of her was still hard.

Alya knew this, but she also knew that unless Mari confronted her problem it would not get any better. On part, that’s why she insisted Mari would come and plotted with her parents to make it so. But on a more selfish note, she just missed her best friend. Alya didn’t pressure her in joining the main spot where everybody congregated. She just hung out with her along with Rose on a table nearby.

“You don’t have to do this,” Marinette grumbled as she picked at the slightly rotten table.

“Do what, we’re just hanging out,” Alya said. Marinette glared at her. “Also, eff everybody, you know? My girl is going through her moody rebel phase and there’s nothing on the face of the planet that will stop me from being in on it with her. You wanna die your hair hot pink or get a tattoo or boycott the patriarchy? Fuck, I’ll do it with you.”

“Yeah, fuck the patriarchy!” said Rose with a bubbly tone. “Set everything on fire, Mari. We’ll help you.”

“Well, you got the macaroon mafia herself on your side, boycotting the patriarchy will be a piece of cake.”

The girls turned around and saw Juleka and Luka approaching the table. As the girls greeted the siblings, Marinette simply smiled smugly at Luka. She decided to skip the pleasant surprise of having him joined the picnic and instead addressed something that was unforgivable in her books.

“Was that a pun, Luka Couffaine?”

“So what if it was?” he said, casually leaning against the table.

“I hate puns.”

“Oh?” Luka said devishly.

“Do no--!”

“Don’t go bacon my heart, Marinette. Everybody loves a good pun!”

Marinette groaned and laughed.

“She couldn’t even if she fried,” Alya said.

“Not you. Not you, Alya!”

She grinned. “I’m sorry Mari, it’s just funny how much you love to hate them.”

“They’re stupid.”

“They’re the highest form of art, excuse you,” Luka said.

“You have _got_ to be a Chat Noir fan,” Marinette said.

“Like any reasonable Parisian.”

The pun battle between the girls and Luka soon attracted more participants, Adrien being one of them, and Marinette noticed. She saw as he walked to the table and quickly looked for an excuse to get away. Catching the drift, Alya offered a quick exit.

“Hey, I think we ran out of ice for the cold box,” Alya said, looking at Mari.

“Oh, I’ll run to the kiosk to get some more,” Mari said, evidently grateful, and standing up right away.

“I’ll go with you,” Luka said, to which Alya gave Mari a smug smile.

Marinette rolled her eyes.

“Easy there, matchmaker,” Marinette whispered, unable to stop herself from smiling.

She waited until they were out of earshot of the group to talk.

“Luka, I’m not actually going for ice, you can go back.”

“I know.”

“What?”

“I know we don’t need ice, Juleka and I brought a new bag.”

Marinette grew red on the face and felt as her fingers ached with growing anxiety.

“I can go back if you don’t want me to stay. I… just thought we could hang out.”

After a bit of stuttering and overcoming herself, Marinette nodded. “That’d be nice.”

Luka and she resolved to just take a walk.

“I wasn’t expecting you’d come to the picnic,” Marinette said.

Luka shrugged. “Eh, I hadn’t seen you girls in a while, and I thought I’d drop by to say hi.”

“You spend an awful lot of time with younger kids for someone your age,” Marinette teased, to which Luka snorted.

“Calm down, ‘The Sound of Music,’” he said, chuckling. “I’m just a year and a half older than you. And I have a very active social life, thank you very much.”

“Right,” Marinette said smugly. “Hanging out with fifteen-year-olds.”

“Well, for your information, I just came by to say hi to you. I’m going to a party after this, so. There you go.”

When she realized he was serious, Marinette dropped the act. She also couldn’t help but flush at the fact Luka came by for her. A moment went by and she realized color crept onto his cheeks, probably as he caught grip of what had just gone out of his mouth.

“Thanks,” Marinette said quietly. “Don’t tell Alya or anyone but I was really glad you came along. I hadn’t seen you in so long.” Seeing him as Ladybug didn’t count, she told herself. 

Luka beamed at her confession.

“Well… we could, I mean if you have time, we could always… We could hang out more.”

Marinette’s lips stretched into an uncontainable smile. “I’d really like that.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city. Their sense of time returned only when Luka got a message from one of his friends asking where he was.

“Oh no! I’m late. I completely lost track of time! You sure you don’t want to tag along? They’re not like, a band of vandals or anything. They just forget to bathe. On occasion.”

Marinette giggled. “Thanks Luka, but I think going to a high school party without having told my parents first wouldn’t be the best… I, uh… I can go next time, though!”

“It’s a date, then—I MEAN! Not like a _date_, date. You know, like a friend date. Just… yeah.”

Marinette nodded. “A friend date sounds good. I better get going, though. I don’t want to make you be even later than you already are.” 

Luka waved his hand. “It’s just a party, I’m sure they won’t mind. You sure you don’t want me to walk you back to the park?”

“Nah, it’s okay. You’re closer to the party from here and the park is just a few metro stops away.”

“I’ll catch you later, then.”

“Sure.” Marinette waved as he walked into the pedestrian mob and went on his way.

Back at the picnic, it only consisted of dwindling members of the group hanging around a streetlamp. Marinette noticed with relief that Adrien, Kagami, and Chloe were already missing. Alya and the girls met Marinette with a complicit grin.

Marinette groaned. “Don’t.”

“But--.”

“Do not, Alya Cesaire.”

Alya grinned at her. “Please?”

“No.”

“Pleaaase?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “We just walked around a bit, Alya. And no, I will give you no more details because I’m sick of teenage drama and I don’t want to make a thing out of this. Luka is just a friend. Let’s not ruin it.”

“I know, girl. I’m just teasing. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks,” Marinette said, playfully mocking an air of sobriety. She let a moment pass and added. “Although he did invite me to a high school party.”

Alya rejoiced. “I’m loving rebel you already.”

“I’m not on a rebel phase, Alya.”

\--

Luka, Marinette discovered, had a knack for running into her at random times of the day. At first, she attributed this to the fact he was a delivery boy and that maybe it was just coincidence. But after pondering for a while, and coming from personal experience, it dawned on Marinette that Luka had perhaps learned her schedule somehow. That is why, when he came across her as she was sketching by the Trocadero, it amused her.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Luka said.

“Hey Luka! It’s so weird we keep meeting accidentally. And it’s not even Wednesday yet!”

“What a coincidence, right?”

“Right,” she said, with a tiny smug grin.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Luka rolled his eyes goodheartedly. “Whatchu drawing there?”

“This?” Marinette flipped through the pages, showing brief flashes of designs and on the fresher pages, some Akumas. “They’re just doodles.”

“If those are just doodles, I can only imagine how much cooler your real designs are. I know you’ve done stuff for Jagged Stone.”

Marinette tried to suppress a smile.

“Thanks. Not that I have much time for designs or anything else these days, though.”

“Why ever not?”

“I—you know, responsibilities.”

“Ah… Gotta hate those.”

“Yeah,” said Marinette as she brought her knees closer to her chest. 

Seeing how Mari became deflated at the though made Luka feel bad but watching a pair of tourists zoom by with one of those electric scooters that littered the city gave him an idea.

“Well, if you have time now, we could take a small tour in those,” he said, nodding at the tourists.

Marinette brightened up as he hoped she would.

“That would be--.”

She was interrupted by a booming siren, alerting the citizens to evacuate the area. An Akuma.

Marinette groaned.

“No biggie, we can just move to a different district.”

Marinette sighed. “I gotta go. Uh… but can we raincheck for tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” Luka nodded.

Her parents were glad when Marinette asked to be excused from bakery duties that next day. They even gave her a bit of extra pocket money, which worried Marinette just the slightest bit.

Luka waited for her at the same spot they had met the day before, already with two scooters standing next to him and a bulky backpack slung over his shoulder.

It was the perfect day to ride a scooter around Paris. The weather wasn’t too bad and the air was clearer than usual. It was refreshing for Marinette to see the streets she so often swung by through an entirely different perspective, even if it did bring back memories from what happened the day before with Chat.

They finished the tour by the Seine, where Luka pulled out the contents of his backpack. Turns out he had brought food.

“Way to think ahead,” Mari said, and remitted to eat.

After some minutes of silence, Luka said, “You’re quieter than usual today.”

Marinette felt her stomach turning, hating how perceptive Luka was.

“Really? I didn’t notice. Ha, ha.”

Luka shrugged good-naturedly and kept eating. Marinette tried to reel in her emotions, but it was no use. Once in motion, she felt as they raged and boiled into a storm she couldn’t control. She felt her throat close painfully and her eyes prickle with tears at their corners.

This was against all codes, against everything Master Fu taught her. And yet, she desperately needed to talk to someone about it, someone that wouldn’t go around poking with questions.

“Something did happen yesterday,” Marinette confessed quietly, making circles with her feet as she tried to evade Luka’s stare.

“But… I just. I _can’t_ tell you. I can’t—” she gasped.

“Hey… hey, it’s okay, Mari. It’s okay.” He reached out to gently grab her by her shoulder. “You… don’t have to say anything. I was just making an observation, I’m a bit dumb like that sometimes. I just blurt out stuff.”

“You’re not dumb.” Marinette sniffed. “And I wanted to talk about it, I just… I really can’t.”

“Is it something with Alya or your friends? Was it Adrien? Your family?”

Marinette wiped away her tears. “No, it has nothing to do with them.”

“Was it the macaroon mafia?”

Marinette laughed in between strangled sobs. “Yeah, the macaroon mafia. It’s so stupid, I shouldn’t even be talking about this. But…” She kept silent for a while, trying to steady herself and control the pain she felt in order to speak, but it was too much. “It just gets so lonely,” she cried.

Luka held her in silence and let her cry out. He knew that when people were this hurt, for whatever reason, comfort words did little as opposed to silence. Once she calmed down, he spoke tentatively.

“If you want to talk about it, you don’t have to tell me the details,” he said. “I won’t ask, won’t tell a soul, either. I know how to keep secrets. You can tell me, Mari. No strings attached.”

Marinette sniffed. “The responsibilities I have,” she muttered. “I… share them, sort of. With someone. And we used to have a teacher but he… he’s--.”

“Don’t need the details, Mari,” he reminded her kindly. “So, your teacher is gone, and?”

“And he left me in charge of everything. And the other person… they, we have a complicated relationship.” Mari’s lower lip trembled as she tried to control yet another wave of grief. “They… they have—or had a conflict of interest with me. And they’re just… I shouldn’t be sad about this. I should be glad they overcame the conflict but…” she sniffed again. “I didn’t realize I’d lose my best friend.”

“Because he moved on from you,” Luka concluded.

Marinette nodded. “We talk and everything but it’s just not the same. There’s this huge elephant in the room now. And it hurts me that he thinks like this is all-or-nothing. Like, it’s either his way or no way. And he keeps asking if I’m doing fine with having to step into our teacher’s shoes but I feel like he’s just doing that because it’s the nice thing to do, not because he actually cares,” she cried. “And, I know it’s selfish. I know. But I just want things to go back to normal. At least he had my back then.”

“Right,” Luka said. “And this friend of yours, you say you were best friends?”

She nodded.

“Hm… Do you want my opinion?”

She nodded again.

“You’re right. It’s a bit selfish to want his attention like that. But your friend also sounds like he’s being a bit childish. All things considered, though, it sounds like you both have a lot of stuff going on and you need to give each other a break. You’re the new teacher and he’s trying to get over you. It’s hard to have new responsibilities hurled at you, trust me, I know. But getting over a crush is also hard. You of all people know that better than anybody.”

“What?”

“He’s trying to get over you at the same time he still needs to show up for whatever it is you do together. Imagine if for some reason you had to spend an hour with Adrien every day? How would you feel? Not great, right? Then, on the other hand, you’re trying to deal with a big responsibility, and you don’t feel like you can share it because of it, because you know it’s awkward.”

“That’s… I never thought of it that way.”

Luka shrugged.

“And what else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Yeah, so what should I do?”

Luka smiled at her. “I think you need to be nicer to each other. Friends fight, it happens. But they also make up, it’s part of being a good friend.”

Mari stared at Luka for a second and then threw herself to hug him. “Thank you, Luka. That’s the best advice I’ve gotten since my teacher left.”

Luka hugged her tightly. “Anytime, Ma-Ma-Marinette.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! If you liked it please consider leaving a comment, it always makes my day to read your guys' reactions ^_^ 
> 
> I don't write very often but I update my stories occasionally, so if you liked it, subscribe to the story so you can catch up next time I post a chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette is conflicted about following Master Fu's rules for the Miraculous and sets out to write her own. Meanwhile, Adrien accepts new responsibilities.

It was a warm, sunny spring weekend in Paris and Tikki hated to see how Marinette, despite her phone blowing off the entire morning with friends inviting her to join for some activity, she had spent the entire time systematically turning them down.

Marinette sighed as she set down her phone down and fiddled with the Miraculous absentmindedly as she took in the sun.

“Marinette, are you okay? What’s the problem? You don’t want to hang out with your friends today?” Tikki asked.

“I’m fine, Tikki,” she said.

Unwilling to let the question go so easily, Tikki flew to directly face Marinette. “You can talk to me, Marinette,” she said.

Marinette smiled. “Thanks.” But her smile faded quickly. She put down the Miraculous she toyed with—the Turtle’s and locked up the box. As she spoke again, she brought her knees closer to her chest.

“It’s just—I can’t believe this is how the rest of my life will be like.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hiding, lying… Alone.”

Tikki kept silent for a moment. “But Marinette, if the Miraculous fell into the wrong hands--.”

Marinette sighed. “Yes, I know, I know. I mean, two of them already did. I just… I was wondering. What would happen if someone found out my identity if I’m both Ladybug and the Guardian? What do I do? Do I just give the Miraculous to someone else?”

Tikki pondered. “I don’t know, actually.”

“And why did Master Fu banned Chat Noir and I from knowing each other’s identities? I mean, I know that he said he’d have to take the Miraculous away but what now? I’m the Guardian now and Master Fu knew Chat Noir’s identity, am I supposed to ask him to reveal it to me?”

“What are you getting at, Marinette?”

“Nothing,” she said pensively. “I’m just wondering. Master Fu was okay with being a hermit for the sake of the Miraculous, but he’s a grownup and he had Marianne back in the day, plus he could always talk to me. I… I have to do it all alone.”

Marinette deflated at the thought. Tikki flew to hug the tip of her nose as hard as she could.

“I wish I had the answer to those questions, Marinette. But there is one thing I know,” she said, breaking apart from her tiny nose-hug. “When Master Fu’s temple was swallowed by his sentimonster, he had no one to turn to and had to adapt to the situation. He made his choices, and now you have to make yours.”

Marinette nodded and was suddenly distracted by her buzzing phone. It was Luka. A smile crept onto her lips. He was inviting her to hang out at the ship, he had some new songs to show to her.

“Thank you, Tikki,” Marinette said, getting up from her sun chair and dusting her pants off.

\--

Spending the day at Anarca’s ship was always a treat, especially with such enjoyable weather.

Juleka had gone out to the city to meet Rose and Anarka was carrying out maintenance on the ship, which meant Luka and Marinette had the deck all to themselves. Marinette had claimed a hammock while Luka sat on a mound of garden pillows on the floor, lazily playing his tunes. It seemed that it would be one of those unusually quiet days where Hawkmoth spared the city, but she didn’t want to jinx it.

She relaxed into the hammock as she placed her focus on the bright blue sky and the sound of Luka’s guitar.

“Oh, I like that one,” she said. “I mean, they’re all great but that one is especially good.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “It’s something new I’m working on for Kitty Section.”

Marinette lifted her arm to give Luka two thumbs up. “I like it!”

Luka chuckled at her antics.

“Oh! By the way, we’re throwing a small concert here in the ship in like, two weeks. We’re gonna play all the new stuff we’ve been working on. You’re welcome to come if you want.”

Marinette finally perked up from her seat. “Are you kidding, of course I’ll come!”

Luka smiled. “It’s also a bit of a party, so feel free to bring the girls and whoever else you want.”

“Sweet!”

Luka nodded happily and kept playing.

After a while, Marinette drifted back into the thoughts of earlier that day.

“Hey Luka?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a macaroon mafia question?”

“Sure,” he said as he continued to play lazy notes.

She explained, to the best of her ability and without giving many details. She told him about how her teacher had set up a certain number of unbreakable rules for her and her “partner,” but how those rules didn’t make much sense to her anymore now that she was both a student and a teacher.

“It’s like a catch twenty-two, you know?” she said. “I can’t do “teacher things” without breaking “student rules.””

“Well, if you want my opinion, I think you can do whatever you want.”

She perked up from the hammock, incredulously looking at him.

He shrugged and explained. “You’re the mafia boss now. If the rules are inconsequential, what does it matter if you follow your teacher’s rules or not? He’s not the boss anymore.”

She bit her lip. “Yeah, but if I don’t… Something really, really bad could happen. And they’re not inconsequential, they’re just… a bit rigid.”

Luka looked at her with arched brows, the question of what exactly that would be itched on his tongue, but he shook it off.

“My point is you call the shots now. No one will go like, ‘boo, bad Marinette. Bad!’ If breaking a rule is what you’re worrying about. ”

Marinette groaned and leaned back onto the hammock. “I don’t like calling the shots… What if I mess up?”

“Well, for one, you’re not completely sure the Big Terrible Thing is going to happen. Maybe it doesn’t, maybe everything works alright. And second,” he peeked into the hammock. “If that happens, I know quite a few people who would help you.”

Marinette smiled.

After finishing her date with Luka, she left a message on Chat Noir’s staff-phone asking to meet with him on their usual rendezvous. With how busy Chat seemed these days and the fact he preferred to do patrolling alone, she didn’t expect him to show up, but she needed to know she at least tried.

She dangled her feet absentmindedly off the edge of the building when she heard a light thud right behind her.

“Evening, LB!” Chat Noir said chirpily.

Ladybug turned around. “Hey! You got my message!”

“Of course.”

“I’m happy you came. It won’t take too long, I promise.”

She motioned for him to sit next to her. As he did, an uncomfortable silence set between the two.

Ladybug sighed and set her eyes on the Parisian horizon as she gathered the composure to do what she was about to do.

“Ladybug, is everything okay?”

She pondered on the question for a moment and rejected the knee-jerk reaction of assuring it was.

“To tell you the truth, no. Things are not okay, Chat.” She kept looking at the distance and sensed the mortification in Chat’s silence. “But they’re not bad, either,” she continued. “They’re… changing.”

She finally looked at him and met with the worry in his eyes.

“I asked you to come here because I feel there’s a conversation we need to have. And I know you feel it, too.”

Chat Noir shifted uneasily. “What—what is this about, Ladybug?”

Unable to hold his stare for much longer, she looked back at the city. “It’s nothing bad, relax. It’s just… I—” she sighed. “I’m sorry, I had this all planned out in my head and now I’m just… I’m a little nervous.”

That only sent Chat Noir into spiraling panic. Was she… was she confessing her feelings for him now that he had a girlfriend?

“I’m sure you’ve noticed things aren’t the same between us ever since…”

“Since Master Fu left,” he completed the sentence quietly. “Yeah.”

Ladybug nodded. “I’m sick of it,” she confessed. “Sometimes I wish everything could just go back to the way that it was.”

“You mean having me pinning after you and having Master Fu tell you things that he doesn’t tell me?” he said with a bit of cynicism.

“That’s not—no. That’s not what I meant. Chat I’m very happy for you, the fact that you have a girlfriend and all of that. I’ve told you that many times, haven’t I? I just mean… things were so much simpler before. Dress up, defeat the bad guy, carry on with your day. Master Fu was the one tracking Hawkmoth and taking care of the Miraculous, and you and me. Now I’m stuck with all those responsibilities and the fact that I’ll grow up to be freakishly old and I’ll live to see everyone I care about die before me, and in the end one of two things will happen first: either I’ll live to die alone or I’ll have to surrender the box to someone at some point and forget all my life,” she blurted as she imagined her entire miserable life play out.

Chat couldn’t help but chuckle good-heartedly. “What do you mean, Ladybug?”

“The box,” she explained with dread in her voice. “It stretches the lifespan of the Guardian and as you saw, if you relinquish it, you also forget everything. It… it really makes you think about your life choices. At age fifteen.”

“Personal information alert,” Chat Noir said jokingly.

Ladybug rolled her eyes and laid down to look at the sky. “Oh no! Somebody stop me, Master Fu is going to take away my Miraculous, oh wait…”

“That is single-handedly the most un-Ladybug thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Well, desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Chat Noir plopped down on his back next to Ladybug. “I’m sorry you had to go through it alone,” he said in a small voice. “I knew this whole ‘being the new Guardian’ was very tough on you, I knew you needed to talk…”

Ladybug kept silent, scared that she might lose control of her emotions. She didn’t want to cry in front of Chat.

“I was just so… so sad and mad at you. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m the one who wouldn’t talk to anyone for like, three months or something.”

“Except I do,” he said. “I ignored you when you needed my help.”

“I’ve done much worse to you, Chaton.”

Chat shook his head. “You were just doing your job.”

“And following rules that make no sense,” she said as she sat up again.

“What do you mean?”

“Master Fu’s rules.” Her heartrate hitched up, sensing as she was nearing the core of the conversation. “You know, he always said that if we found out each other’s identity or if someone discovered us, he would need to take away Plagg or Tikki. But what now?”

Chat sat up with an expression of dawning realization.

“I mean, he knew who you are and who I am. But what the hell am I supposed to do now? I’m the Guardian. Am I supposed to know who you are? After all this ordeal? After going out of my way not to—to know who you are? And that no-outsiders rule is just… it’s such bullcrap! You remember Backwarder? Marianne Lenore? Well, she used to be a Miraculous holder. And she knew Fu!”

“You… you present a very valid point.”

“No outsiders my butt,” she said, trying to catch her breath as she felt the waves of frustration threatening to overcome her.

“I just—I hate that he left!” she said angrily. “I hate that he left me on the worst possible moment. He left me with no instructions and no one to talk to and he—he had all those things and he pretended like they weren’t there!” Ladybug pushed away her tears with fury, as if punishing herself.

“But you’re not alone, Ladybug,” he said. “You got me.”

“I know that, Chat. And I’m very thankful. But sometimes… I just wish I could talk to him again. He was the only person I could talk to about how it felt to be me. The person behind the mask. He… he was our mentor. And at the same time, though I loved Master Fu, the more time I have to think about what he taught me, the more I realize how big his mistakes were. And how much I need to correct them. ”

She looked at him.

“We’re supposed to be equals,” she said. “I’ll never understand why Master Fu always kept you in the dark and why he made me a participant of that. All I know is that I call the shots now, and no partner of mine is going to be second best.”

Chat Noir perked up with a certain twinkle in his eye, resisting the urge to hug Ladybug.

“So, I decided I’m not going to hide anything from you like Master Fu wanted me to and I’ll--.”

“You can train me!” he said urgently.

“What?”

“You can train me to be a Guardian like you, Ladybug. You don’t have to do it alone.”

“Did you not just hear me complain about the fact I’ll live up to be a hundred and fifteen and I’ll most likely live to see all of my loved ones die or…?”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “We’re both in this mess, I don’t see why you’re the only one who has to end up with the short stick.”

“You’ll give up a lot of things, Chat. It’s not so simple. And I’m not even sure if there’s such a thing as co-guardianship.”

“I know,” he said. “But I won’t let you do it alone. We can figure it out together. We’re the bug and cat team.”

Ladybug smiled at him.

“There’s one more thing I need to tell you, though. In the spirit of not keeping things from each other anymore.”

Chat nodded.

She took in a deep breath. “There’s no elegant way to say this so I’ll just say it. Not as Ladybug, but as the Guardian, I decided it’s okay whether we know our identities or not. It’s up to you.”

Chat Noir became paralyzed for a moment as he tried to decide what on earth to feel first. Shock, anger, surprise, confusion, they all came down at the same time battling each other for a chance to speak first.

“You _what_?”

“I know how it sounds. And it doesn’t have to be now, or ever, really. I just decided that it’s fine with me.”

He blinked a couple of times. “Wow… You want… You’ll just… Wow.”

Ladybug noticed with uneasiness this was not sitting well with Chat Noir.

“Are you mad?”

Chat Noir couldn’t hide it. “To be honest, yes, a little bit… But let me get this straight, if it hadn’t been for Master Fu’s rules you wouldn’t have cared whether or not we found out our identities?”

Ladybug pondered over it. “I mean, when you take out the fact you were… infatuated… out of the equation, it actually makes sense to me. Especially now that it’s just the two of us.”

That comment irked Chat Noir and knew that if he didn’t stir the conversation somewhere else, there would be a nasty fight soon. Ladybug probably didn’t mean ill, but it made him mad that she was so insensitive about the subject. She knew there was nothing he wanted more than to know who she was behind the mask. She knew how hard it was for him to get over her. And now, suddenly, not only it did not matter but she treated his feelings as if it had just been some school crush.

“Right… Thanks for telling me, Bugginette,” he said, trying his best to control his emotions and be kind to her. “But, uh… I need to be honest with you, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. Like you said, it’s better this way. For both of us.”

Ladybug felt her heart being ripped into a million pieces, but she didn’t show it. “Right. Of course, Chat. Yeah, you’re right.”

“It’s good to know, though.”

“Right. Good to know.”

\--  
  


As much as Adrien enjoyed it, it didn’t take him a long time to realize that having a girlfriend would come with its set of problems, especially now that he had to find a way to squeeze in time to train as a Guardian. For one, although his father approved of his relationship with Kagami and that meant his liberties had increased, that also meant he needed to come up with more and more excuses to ditch her every time an Akuma happened when they were together. Which, to Adrien’s bad luck, was quite often.

Kagami was an intelligent girl and bough the excuses the first few times but after a while, he was forced to get more creative and to sweep out of the picture as soon as Ladybug and he were done with an Akuma.

He stumbled back into the café they were at when the Akuma attacked, short of air and hair looking like a haystack.

He reached the table trying his best to recover his breath while Kagami simply looked at him, trying not to chuckle.

“There was… an Akuma…” Adrien said, heaving. “I got transformed into… into a minion.”

Kagami sipped from her tea. “Yeah, I know, me too.”

Relief washed over him, knowing he wouldn’t have to elaborate.

“Take a seat before you faint,” she said, jokingly. “You could’ve just texted me.”

“Huh. Yeah, I didn’t think of that.”

Kagami giggled and then looked at the window. “It’s so crazy, right?”

“What is?”

“There’s a magic terrorist running rampant through the city and you’d never guess it if it weren’t for a handful of teenagers. It’s crazy.”

“Uh… teenagers? What teenagers?”

Kagami rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Ladybug and her friends? Who else?” She turned back to Adrien. “You know? She picked me once, as a Miraculous holder.”

“Kagami!” He gasped and looked around the café to make sure no one heard.

“What?” she said, a bit amused at Adrien’s scandalized reaction.

“I don’t think that’s the type of thing you’re supposed to tell anyone,” he muttered.

“Yeah, but you’re my boyfriend,” she said happily. “It doesn’t count, I can tell you anything.”

“Right.” He looked down at his coffee.

“What, you wouldn’t tell me if she had picked you?” She said, teasing at first, but then deriving an answer from Adrien’s silence. “You wouldn’t?”

Adrien shrugged, too nervous to answer.

“You wouldn’t,” she affirmed. “Has she ever picked you?”

“I—I just think it’s not right. If Ladybug picked you, that should be between you and her, she trusted you.”

“Right, but you wouldn’t trust me with that type of thing.”

Adrien shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s not about whether I trust you—which I do. It’s just… It’s supposed to be a secret, right?”

“A secret that not even your boyfriend could know about?”

He nodded. “At least in my opinion.”

Kagami crossed her arms and leaned back on her chair.  
  
It was not often that Kagami got mad at him, but it always made him desperately anxious when she did.

“Hey, but this is completely hypothetical,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “She’s never even picked me!”

Kagami just glanced at him. “Right, and even if she did, it’s not like I’d ever know.”

Adrien sank into his chair.

“I’m sorry,” Kagami hurried to say. “I just think we should be able to trust each other completely.”

“Right,” he agreed, trying to sound sincere.

The rest of the afternoon with Kagami was pleasant and though she didn’t bring it up anymore, the conversation became a thought that didn’t leave Adrien’s mind for the rest of the day. He suddenly understood what Ladybug meant about the Guardianship not being something to be taken lightly. He imagined himself, years into the future—whether it was with Kagami or someone else—and knowing he’d never be able to tell his family that he was Chat Noir, and a Guardian of the Miraculous. He certainly would not back down on his word, but the conversation with Kagami made him think about the long-term implications of becoming a Guardian along Ladybug.

“And so, of course you have the top tier levels, which are your Miraculous and mine, and the other five. Then you have the Chinese zodiacal level—Chat, are you listening?”

“Huh? What? Sorry. Sorry.”

It was the third time during this training session that Chat’s mind drifted off. Ladybug set aside the Miracle Box and looked at Chat with concern. “Is everything alright? You’re distracted today.”

“Yeah. I just… Something happened today that made me think about this whole guardianship thing.”

“You want to talk about it?”

He sighed. “It’s nothing. I had some sort of… hypothetical argument with my girlfriend today. About the Miraculous nonetheless,” he said, rolling his eyes with half a smile.

Ladybug pressed her lips in a smile. “A hypothetical argument?”

Chat shook his head. “She was talking about you, actually. How you choose extra people for battle sometimes and she said she’d never hide it from me if she was chosen. Then she got mad because I said I wouldn’t tell her if you “chose” me.”

Ladybug tried hard not to chuckle.

“It’s silly, I know,” Chat agreed, laughing a bit himself. “But it made me think. What will happen in the future, when we’re both grown up and have families and jobs, and we cannot tell them about this. It’s hard to keep a secret this big.”

“Tell me about it.” She played around with the Miraculous jewels as she spoke. “But if it makes you feel any better, Tikki always tells me not to worry about things that haven’t happened yet. You never know how things might unfold and there’s no use in worrying about it when all you have is the present. And there’s also the possibility that we won’t have to be Ladybug and Chat Noir forever. You never know.”

Chat was helpless against the immediate dread that possibility stirred in him. Ladybug gave him a lopsided smile.

“I don’t want that to happen,” he said. “I mean it, Ladybug.”

“We see what happens. For the moment being…” She pushed the box against him. “It’s time to train.”

Chat Noir lifted the Dragon’s necklace gingerly and inspected it. One of the thoughts he kept going back to was how disappointed he was that Kagami wouldn't keep the secret of the Miraculous to herself. She didn't see anything wrong because she trusted him, but it was not about that. It was about following a code, about honoring your word. He was surprised at himself that he had such a strong reaction, but what was the most unexpected for him was how similar it was to Ladybug's reaction and reasoning when she turned down his romantic advances. He was beginning to understand what she meant. It still hurt, but at least now with Kagami's unadverted help, Ladybug's logic prior to becoming a Guardian made sense to him. It's not personal, it's simply what the job demanded. And in this case, though he cared for Kagami very much, and knew she was more than capable of wielding the Miraculous, he knew he had to put his feelings aside.  
  
“By the way, I really think you should find a new holder for this Miraculous.”

Ladybug arched an eyebrow.

“Just take my word for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! As usual, thank you very much for reading! If you liked the chapter, I'd love to read your comments. Your reactions and thoughts make my day and keep me motivated :) 
> 
> Until next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luka is always in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  
Mari comes to a decision.  
Adrien realizes he's the living embodiment of a dumb blonde.  
Angst. Angst everywhere.  
Enjoy your suffering :)
> 
> Extra notes at the end of the chatper

Luka was not the kind of teenager that got in trouble. Or, at least, if he ever did it was more accident than power of will. Take today for example. In a fashion that was very unlike him, he had forgotten his guitar back home on a day when he was supposed to stay with his friends to jam out after school. He decided he'd hurry home on the lunch break to get it and return in time for the afternoon block. It was nothing to break a sweat about.

He was happily riding the metro back to school when the train stopped abruptly.

"No," he muttered. "No, no, no. Please let it be just a mechanical failure."

The train stalled, shook violently, and then the evacuation alarm started going off.

Luka hit his forehead with his guitar in frustration.

There were several types of prerecorded alarms in Paris to warn the citizens of Akuma attacks. If you were in a nearby district but not where the action was happening , they'd only play a short tune. If you were on the outskirts, but still in the district where the attack was happening, they played a three-note low pitched siren. If you were in the immediacy of the attack, as Luka unfortunately was, the alarm was more along the lines of what you'd hear if someone was trying to nuke Paris. The prerecorded evacuation instructions urged the passengers to evacuate the train and the station, and to find shelter as soon as possible.

Judging from how the station trembled, Luka suspected the Akuma was directly above. He followed the crowd to the exit and sure enough, the rest of commuters and him had to hurry into the nearest shop or protection as they were met with an angry Akuma hurling attacks at them. The shops around the area had already absorbed most of the commuters, leaving out only the ones that had been too slow to find shelter. Luka spotted a service alley a bit further away and dashed for it, effectively finding only garbage containers. He hurried to hide between two of them and sighed with relief after making it in one piece.

His peace was shortly disturbed as he heard someone running into the alleyway as well. He peeked out, suspecting it was either more people trying to find a place to hide or one of those thugs that used the distraction of Akumas to mug people. Instead he found Marinette carrying herself with a confidence he had never seen before. She opened her purse, and out it flew what was unmistakably a Kwami.

"Tikki, Spots On!"

Luka gasped and immediately pushed himself back into his hiding cranny, hoping Marinette---Ladybug didn't see him.

After a moment of sheer adrenaline and shock, he peeked again, only to find Marinette gone.

Luka remained petrified for the remainder of the Akuma attack, unable to move or process what he had seen even after the attack had been diffused. He lost track of time, only regaining it when his phone rang. It was his mom.

"Hey mom."

"Luka, where are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm---"

"Your homeroom teacher called and let me know you weren't at school."

"I... sorta got caught in an Akuma attack."

Luka knew that to the eye of an outsider, the situation read in no other way than him having skipped school and getting trapped in an Akuma attack as he ditched. Knowing his mom, it was best not to try to reason with her just yet.

"I'm going home right now."

Anarka ended the conversation with a threatening, "You better, or I'll have you waxing the dock for a month, young man!"

To his benefit, Anarka knew Luka wasn't the kind of kid that purposefully broke the rules and explaining why he had been trapped in the Akuma attack appeased his mom. A thing of luck, undoubtedly, as he had a lot to unpack after what he had learned that day.

He laid on his bed and looked at the ceiling, not knowing where to begin.

After giving time for his thoughts to settle, the first thing that came to his mind was that her being Ladybug completely explained the gravity of her meltdown a few months ago. He felt bad for her.

She could be the most powerful teenager in all of Paris, but Marinette was also a girl who had her heart broken. Not only that, but she had to shoulder the responsibility of the Miraculous. He went on and guessed that for some reason, she couldn't talk to Chat Noir about how she felt. And if she couldn't talk to him, she couldn't talk to anyone. That, on top of the fact that everyone knew about her crush on Adrien and when he started dating, everyone she knew in her regular life treated her as if she was made of glass.

It all made sense. That's how she came to him, to ask for advice. Poor Marinette didn't have anyone to turn to.

The next thing that came to mind made him dread. Should he tell Marinette that he found out or should he keep it to himself? He knew she trusted him, after all, she had been asking him for advice. But he couldn't shake the feeling he had overstepped a boundary. Involuntarily, yes. But a line that shouldn't have been crossed, nonetheless.

\--

"You're quiet today," Chat commented as they vaulted through the Parisian night sky in one of their nightly patrols. As of late, Chat Noir had asked Ladybug to return to patrolling together, to which she had complied happily.

Ladybug gave him a smug glance. "That's literally the first thing you've said all night, Chaton."

"Huh. Really?"

Ladybug nodded.

"Guess we both have things in our mind right now," she said as they landed on a roof.

"I'll tell you my secrets if you tell me yours," Chat said devilishly, to which she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"Okay, but you go first."

Chat pouted. "Not fair, I asked first."

Ladybug sighed, evading his glance. "You're not gonna like what it's about."

Chat Noir gulped. "Okay, now you really have to go first. I don't care. Are you moving from Paris? Is that it?"

Ladybug giggled. "No, that's not it, Chat." She looked away, in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. "I have been thinking about that last time we talked about... identities and---Don't look at me like that, I know what you're thinking and I'm not going to do that to you. I just... have been thinking a lot about that, why Master Fu had this rule for us, and... whether it applies to other people..."

Chat's stomach dropped to the floor. "What are you talking about?"

Ladybug sighed. "I really appreciate that you want to take more responsibility with the Box, and all these things, Chaton, but... I just wish I could confide in someone the way I did with Master Fu. You know? Don't you ever feel that way, too?"

Ironically, he had. But as of late, Chat Noir had begun learning about the benefits of being more like Ladybug in her unwavering commitment to keep her identity secret. Funnily enough, this conversation uncomfortably reminded him of the one he had with Kagami not so long ago.

He wanted to protest against the idea he now saw so clearly, but he let her finish for her benefit.

"Now, I know you want to keep our identities secret, and I respect that. But I was thinking to have some sort of... some support group."

"Support group? You might as well tell Nadia Chamak, Ladybug."

"That's---I mean, as a concept. I only have two people in mind that I would ever want to tell, if it wasn't you. And both have yielded Miraculous before. They are very good friends of mine and I trust them almost as much as I trust you."

Chat Noir widened his eyes in surprise, immediately wondering who these people were. Who did he know that Ladybug had given Miraculous to before? Chloe, Marinette, Max, Luka, Kagami, and himself. The only two

wielders he didn't know, were the Turtle and the Fox. Perhaps with the exception of Marinette, every other alternative seemed catastrophic not to mention that if she confided in him, she would inadvertently give away her identity.

"Ladybug, that's a horrible idea," he interrupted her. "I'm sorry, but it is. What if they ever turn on you? What if they betray you? There are so many things that could go wrong."

"I am certain they wouldn't. Besides, I wouldn't trust them with every single piece of information there is about the Miraculous."

Chat huffed with frustration and grabbed a chunk of his hair.

"This isn't a good idea!"

"Well, what do you suggest, Chat Noir? I'm tired of living so... so isolated! The Miraculous have already taken so much from me. I just---I need someone I can talk to without fearing they might figure me out."

Chat looked at her as she tried to wipe away her tears inconspicuously.

"What did it take?" Chat asked quietly.

"Master Fu," she muttered. "And... it's hard to explain but, indirectly, someone I really cared about in my civilian life."

Chat sighed.

"I don't want you to reveal your identity for me," she continued. "I'm just trying."

"I know, LB. It's only... this whole talk, you have to understand--"

"I know, I know. I just thought it would make it easier for both of us." After a pause, she had an idea. "You could always meet the people I want to tell, and you could judge by yourself."

"I think it wouldn't be hard to put two and two together after that." He paused. "Do you really think it's a good idea?"

"I've thought about it for a long time, and I even asked Tikki and Wayzz. They told me Master Fu had made his decisions as a Guardian, and it was now time for me to make mine. And the thing is, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If it's only you and me, we only have each other. It's about redundancy. If we have other people to help us to protect our identities, our loved ones will not be at such high risk if Hawkmoth ever discovers us. Besides, you and I both know we need all the manpower we can lay our hands on to take him down. At this point, these patrols are only excuses to hang out together."

Chat Noir chuckled. "That is true." He looked at Ladybug, unable to hold her stare for more than a couple seconds. "I... I still think it's not the greatest idea, Ladybug. But if you think it's the right path, I'll follow you. Most of the time I don't understand half of the plans you come up with, anyway."

"Because they're brilliant?" Ladybug bantered.

"Because they're ridiculous," he retorted, snickering.

"Thank you, Chaton."

Chat Noir rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Well, don't make such a big deal about it..."

Ladybug beamed at him. "And so, what was on your mind?'

"Eh?"

"You were also quiet tonight. You'd say you'd spill the beans, so. Chop-chop."

Chat Noir's cheeks blushed slightly. "It's completely stupid compared to what was on your mind."

"Aw, come on. Not fair."

He shook his head. "Just... girl troubles, is all."

"Oh?" Ladybug said, expertly pushing down her feelings for him deeper than the very deepest of the abysses.

"It's nothing, seriously. I'm a bit confused, I guess."

"About what?"

"This girl that I'm dating. And... this other girl?"

"Chat Noir!" She smacked his head.

"Ow! I'm not _cheating!"_

\-----

Things were looking up for Marinette. It had been over six months since Master Fu had left and she was beginning to feel a certain command over her situation. Chat and she were making progress adapting to their new normal, and she no longer felt like she was alone. She had him, and Luka. Her confidence in herself was finally going back to normal, to the point she could acknowledge Adrien and Kagami without feeling like she needed to flee_._

She had gone back to sitting next to Alya, back to being herself and then some more. Where there once was the jittery Marinette that stumbled on her own feet and struggled to form coherent sentences around Adrien, there stood a Marinette that spared no one with her sarcasm and wit; not even Adrien.

School was over for the day and Marinette was hanging out with her friends at the building's steps, as she often did when she could spare the minutes. She spotted Luka approaching in the distance, carrying a cardboard box that was a little too big, a little too heavy for him.

"Hey Luka!" Marinette called, waving at him as he arrived at the scene, inadvertently startling him, and causing him to drop the box with quite a ruckus.

"Oh no..." Marinette whispered, hurrying to help him as her friends witnessed the interaction. "You okay there, butter fingers?"

Luka blushed a bright red---a reaction that was very much unlike him---as he struggled to quickly put back the contents of the box.

"Hey Mari!" he said sheepishly, desperately trying to find his cool; something he had been failing at spectacularly since he had found out about her secret identity. Precisely why he had been keeping his distance a little bit, until he was sure he wouldn't spill right in front of her.

"Yeah... yeah I'm fine! Just... delivering things... Because that's like, my job or whatever."

Marinette giggled. "I'm excited for the party this weekend," she commented for his benefit, which seemed to relax him the tiniest bit.

"Yeah, me too... Did Jules tell you, by the way? That she's inviting Adrien?"

She blew a short raspberry with her lips and waved her hand nonchalantly at him. "Yeah. It's okay, not a problem. Honestly, you all need to stop treating me like I'll catch on fire if he does so much as stand in my general direction. He's part of the group, I expected Juleka would want to invite him. I'll be fine. Plus, it's your guys' party, not mine. You can invite whoever you want."

Luka smiled warmly at her, noticing hints of that self-assuredness that was characteristic of Ladybug. "I know, just wanted to make sure. Welp, looks like I'm all packed up again. Better get going. Thanks for coming to the rescue."

Marinette nodded heartily.

"So, I'll see you on the weekend?"

She tried to ignore the fluttering in her stomach and the blood rushing to her cheeks. "Most definitely."

She returned to the steps, where Nino, Adrien, and the rest of the boys had joined, to a smug version of Alya and Juleka.

"Do _not_. Even. Start."

The pair chuckled.

"I mean, I didn't say anything...." Alya said, still snickering.

Marinette sighed exasperatedly, though secretly enjoying the hype-up from her friends. "You guys are the absolute worst. Luka is just my friend, okay?"

"Sure, sure. Just a friend," Juleka said.

As the girls kept bantering, Adrien could not help but listen in on the girls' conversation. So, it was like he suspected, Luka and Marinette were dating.

He felt that uncomfortable pit sitting at the bottom of his stomach again. The one that appeared when she started putting space between them, and that grew more evident when Nino explained to him why she had acted the way she did around him. It was an uneasy feeling that made him grow nervous and unsure because, why would he be feeling like this if he was already dating Kagami? He could not answer the question, no matter how hard he tried.

Just as the weekend rolled around for the party, an Akuma caught Marinette unprepared: the lucky charm had asked her to choose a wielder to help in battle and her instinct gravitated towards the fox's pendant like a magnet to the iron. An uncomfortable sensation sat at the bottom of her stomach, remembering what she had been meaning to do, guilty that she hadn't gathered the courage to do it yet.

She snatched the necklace and darted in the direction of Alya's house. She found her doing her toenails for tonight's party.

"Got a minute?" Ladybug said as she peeked from Alya's window, hanging upside-down.

Alya yelped and grabbed onto her desk chair so as to not fall from the surprise.

"Sorry," Ladybug apologized sheepishly, then showed her the jewelry box.

"Oof, you're catching me in an awkward position..."

Ladybug felt dread and immediate relief that she had not gone with her plan just yet. Maybe Alya wouldn't be able to keep the secret after all. It's good she didn't say anything. Chat Noir was right.

"Hang on." Alya wobbled to the window and grabbed the box.

"Wouldn't you rather stay?" Ladybug said. "I can ask someone else."

"No, no. Duty calls. It's just nail polish."

Ladybug beamed at her. "For the record, I hate it when happens to me, too. Cute color, though."

As Ladybug expected, with the help of Rena Rouge, Chat Noir and she were able defeat the Akuma in record time. It left them with a few extra minutes alone after Chat fled the scene.

Rena and Ladybug found an alley where she could detransform and hand back the Miraculous. Ladybug's heart raced as she anticipated the dialogue she rehearsed. She had made up her mind. Alya would be the first to know.

"Well, that was fun, as usual!" Alya said, once she detransformed. She checked her phone and hissed. "Oh my god, I'm going to be so late! I need to run, Ladybug."

Ladybug could only nod and thank her for her help, then sighed and cursed at herself as she went back home.

Alya was only a few minutes late to pick up Marinette, which she found impressive. If that had been her having to pick up Alya after an Akuma attack she would have taken at least an hour more. She'd have to ask her how she did it, once everything was out in the open.

The prospect of having no one other than her best friend to talk about this superhero stuff made Marinette elated. She figured she'd try again on their way to the party.

"Alya?" Marinette said as they were riding the metro.

"Hmm?" Alya said, without taking her eyes off her phone.

"I---I got a confession to make."

Alya's attention immediately jolted up, with eyes wide as plates. "Well, don't leave me hanging, you're going to give me a heart attack! What happened?"

"I... uh... I know Ladybug."

Alya made a face, perplexed.

"I mean, I've met her. I thought you'd want to know... She, uh... She gave me a miraculous once."

This was the test that Marinette had thought to test whether her hunch was right. It was not that she did not trust Alya, but Chat Noir's arguments against her idea of confiding in other people did open the door to doubt. She needed to make sure that Alya wouldn't say anything. She had already proven herself as a worthy wielder, but if she was right about her, she'd have a similar reaction to Chat Noir with his girlfriend: She'd scold her for wanting to tell, or she would play dumb to deescalate.

"Oh," Alya said, evidently uncomfortable. "Really? I didn't know she did that..." she said, simply, and tried to distract herself by mindlessly scrolling through her phone, but Marinette pressed on.

"You don't wanna know about it? You know, for the Ladyblog?"

"Nah, it's okay."

"But it's an exclusive, no one in Paris would know about this. You'd be famous!"

"I think the next stop is ours" Alya said, desperately trying to change the subject.

"I can tell you the powers it gave me," Marinette continued. "I even remember what the costume looked like, I can make a design for you, so you can put it up in the blog."

"Aren't you scared that she will never let you have powers again if you tell me?" Alya said. "What if she finds out?"

Marinette shrugged. "How bad can it be? Everybody knows Chloe is Queen Bee, right?"

"Girl, I wouldn't be trying to reach any standard set by Chloe," she said, laughing. Then, with evident relief, she got up. "Our stop, let's go."

Marinette dropped the subject for the time being, seeing as they were only a few blocks away from the Couffaines’ ship.

By the time they arrived there was already quite a crowd in the ship. Marinette spotted her classmates near a table with snacks and drinks, her heart skipping a beat just in the slightest when she saw Adrien out of the corner of her eye. He seemed like he had come alone. She berated herself when disappointment washed through her as Kagami came into the picture.

There were also a few older kids Marinette didn’t know, whom she assumed were Luka’s friends.

Alya and Marinette made their way to the little group where Nino was along with Adrien and Kagami. She tried her best to behave, finding that it was much easier than it used to be. If she was completely honest with herself, Adrien wasn’t even at the front of her attention–if one was willing to overlook the slight moment of weakness as she arrived. Instead, she was busy scanning the crowd inconspicuously trying to spot Luka.

Juleka caught on and smirked.

“If you’re looking for my brother, he’ll be right back. He’s downstairs.”

Most of the group laughed good-naturedly at Marinette’s sudden red face and stuttering. Adrien was perhaps the only one who didn’t poke fun at her. He felt that familiar, uneasy sensation seize him. It dawned on him this is the way Marinette had always acted around him before, and now it was because of Luka. He shook his head.

_Stop it, you’re with Kagami. You like Kagami._ By the way Kagami sneaked an arm around his back and leaned her head against his torso, one could think it was as if she could almost sense Adrien’s hesitation.

He caught Marinette’s blink-and-you-miss-it pout, feeling guilty that it brought him some sense of what, hope? relief? It was misplaced either way. He berated himself.

“Well, but if it isn’t Ma-ma-Marinette.”

Luka had come back as promised by Juleka, to which Mari beamed, all thoughts of Adrien immediately forgotten.

“Hey, you,” she said, evidently blushing but able to maintain her cool.

“I’m happy you made it.” Luka glanced at her outfit and he chuckled, suddenly remembering the obvious fact of her double life. “I’m digging the low-key Chat Noir motif.”

She shrugged it off, playing along. “What can I say, I’m a fan of his work.”

“Of course, you would be,” he said grinning.

Marinette smiled at him, perplexed. “What, do I give off a fangirl vibe?”

Suddenly realizing she might suspect of him, he added nonchalantly, “Like I’ve said before, any reasonable Parisian is a Chat Noir fan.”

“So, this is the famous Marinette,” said a tall, burly guy, who approached the group flanked by another boy and a girl. By the way Luka glowed like a stop light and how the company snickered, Marinette assumed these were Luka’s friends.

“Marinette, these are Albin, Margot, and Noe.”

The three teenagers grinned and waved at Marinette and the rest of the group.

“We’ve heard so much about you!” Margot, the girl, said as she enthusiastically pulled Marinette into a tight hug.

“No, you have not,” Luka said, clenching his teeth.

“Yes, we have,” she piped back. “He just won’t shut up about you.”

“O-kay,” Luka said, shoving the grinning trio out of the way. “Go raid the fridge or something.”

“We could never, Anarka will kill us,” said the guy that initially approached the group—Albin.

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Luka said, finally pushing them away and turning quickly back to Marinette, still looking like a tomato. “Sorry… They’re a handful.”

“No sweat, I know exactly what you mean,” Marinette said, sneaking a glance at Alya and the girls.

Luka caught drift of what Marinette was trying to say, and coolly, joked, “With friends like these who needs matchmakers, am I right?—I MEAN. I didn’t– I just.”

The group giggled.

“I need to fix the stage, bye!”

Luka marched away quickly, hoping to trip and fall onto the Seine as he was still within ear range of her sister and her friends cackling about the interaction. But all things considered it could’ve been worse, his friends could have been there, too.

“Girl, it’s like looking at a mirage,” Alya said, still snickering.

“It’s not funny, guys!” Marinette said, evidently bothered.

“You have got to appreciate the irony here,” Alix said. She kissed her fingers the way a chef would. “Pure poetry.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Well, _I_ thought it was sweet.”

“Yeah, no one’s denying that,” Alya said. “Poor boy is in over his head for you, is what this is.”

Marinette’s blush deepened. “No, he’s not. He just gets awkward around too many people. Besides he’s just my fr–” She caught herself before finishing the sentence, involuntarily crossing glances with Adrien. She was clumsy but not stupid, she wouldn’t be tripping with that particular rock. “It’s not nice to make fun of him like that. He’s our friend.”

“Alright, alright,” Alya said, raising her hands, good-naturedly. “Sorry, we’ll stop.”

As the party progressed, Kitty Section and a couple other bands Luka had invited went onto the stage, leaving Marinette and company to mingle with other people at the party. At Kagami’s own request, only Adrien and herself had stayed by themselves. They were hanging out at the back of the boat, to watch the sunset.

Kagami leaned her head against Adrien’s shoulder and sighed. “This is so nice.”

After Adrien let the silence go on uninterrupted, she insisted. “Isn’t it?”

“Sorry, what? I spaced out for a second.”

Kagami gave him a warm smile. “I was just saying it’s nice to be with you.”

Adrien blushed, inadvertent panic flooding his bloodstream. “Yeah,” he agreed after a while. “It’s nice.”

_Just that, though. Nice. _

Noticing Adrien was still caught up in his reverie, she asked sweetly, “What are you thinking about?”

He blinked a couple times as if trying to focus himself. “Nothing in particular.”

“Wanna hear what I’m thinking about?”

Adrien took a look at her and nodded. She played with his ringed hand, making him slightly nervous. She wasn’t precisely toying with the ring, but it still made him a little restless.

“I’m just thinking how much I love spending time with you, that we finally have someone to be with.”

Adrien smiled half-heartedly at her and easily slipped back into his knotted thoughts when she went back to silently leaning against his shoulder and enjoying the sunset.

He realized something in that moment. It’s not that he was alone before, the only moment Adrien was truly alone was when he was at home. And really, when he really looked at his overbooked scheduled, it actually wasn’t that much time. He was not alone a lot, but for sure was always lonely. And it’s not that he still fell like that with Kagami. It was quite the opposite, he enjoyed whenever they were together. She was clever, funny, determined, assertive… She brightened his days. But it didn’t matter how hard he tried; he just couldn’t force himself to slip into the same kind of reckless affection he used to have for a certain spotted lady and redirect it at her. He wasn’t even able to feel the same way he felt when Nino told him Marinette had had a crush on him.

Company was not the same as love, he reflected. He suspected the same could be said about certain friendships.

His thoughts were yet again interrupted by Kagami’s sudden ringing phone. She unlocked it with a pout.

“It’s my mom,” she informed. “My driver’s already waiting on the street.”

“Oh,” Adrien simply said, getting up. “That’s too bad. I can walk you out, though.”

Kagami smiled and eagerly nodded at him, not missing the opportunity to peck him on the cheek.

They went around the floor dance and hung out for a little bit at the bridge that connected the ship to the rest of Paris.

“I promise I won’t leave our next date after like, an hour. My mom’s warming up to you, and she seems to be okay with your dad, too, so that’s good,” she offered brightly.

Adrien smiled at her, almost tempted to add, ‘provided there are no Akumas,’ but he restrained himself.

Kagami giggled as she focused her sight on the dance floor. “I’m glad everything turned out for the better, you know?”

The comment caught Adrien off guard. “What do you mean?” he said tilting his head.

Kagami nodded in the direction of the dance floor, where Luka and Marinette were dancing together.

“I’m happy she’s not mad at us anymore,” Kagami said. “Plus, they make a cute couple.”

Adrien was left with his engine wheels churning as fast as they could, trying to process and decipher what Kagami actually was trying to say. Before he could come to a satisfactory conclusion, Kagami pecked him on the lips and waved at him goodbye as she got on her car.

He checked his phone for any messages before he went back to the party. His dad was out of town with Natalie in tow and it was George who’d be watching him for the time being. Luckily, he was not nearly as strict as Natalie and permission to do anything only involved the time, the place, and him keeping his phone’s geo-location on.

Happily, he found his inbox empty and slipped his phone into his pocket as he marched back to the boat.

He went back to analyzing Kagami’s last comment as he walked, finally realizing why she thought Marinette was mad: She could only be mad if Kagami had known. Kagami knew of Marinette’s crush on him. He didn’t know how to feel about that, considering that Kagami had actually told him she thought of Marinette as a friend. Why would she do that if she was a friend? Why would she–

His thoughts were violently interrupted and suddenly felt as if someone had pulled the rug from under him.

The sight before him hurt, it hurt so much more than he actually thought was possible. It scared him that he couldn’t readily explain why. Why did it hurt so much? It was unreasonable for him to feel this way. He was with Kagami. He _liked _Kagami. And yet, why did it feel allegedly as painful as when Ladybug turned him down for good? Why did it feel like he couldn’t breathe, like he was drowning?

He noticed tears were discreetly rolling down his cheeks, and in that moment knew that he had to take cover somewhere. He dashed for the secluded spot where Kagami and him had previously been, unable to understand why he felt heartbroken at the sight of Luka kissing Marinette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EY EY EYYYY  
Hi demons, it's ya homegirl. Lol not me not updating for an entire year.  
Sorry friends, you know how it goes with adulthood and neurodivergence. I have stopped having any expectations from my ability to post consistently at this point, AND YOU SHOULD TOO. A little secret: I may or may not have downed an entire bottle of Pinot Noir by myself while writing this baby, but that is beside the point.  
Anyway, hope you liked this chapter and as usual, leave a comment if you enjoyed it. I love reading your reactions and I CANNOT stress enough how effective they are at getting me to sit my ass down to finish the next chapter (which is currently half-way through). Also, I *say* this thing is 10 chapters and I got them all planned out but I got a feeling either this thing's gonna spiral into a slowburn and hence not get finished, OR I'll make my ADHD my bitch and finish it. Which one it will be? I wish I could tell ya, bud.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I COME BEARING FRESH SUFFERING.
> 
> No summary this time, thought I'd throw you into the rodeo unprepared this time. 
> 
> Enjoy >:)

It was an odd bout of luck to have the stern of the ship completely empty by the time Adrien rushed back, but it should have come as no surprise given that the dance floor was completely packed. The same dance floor where Luka and Marinette had been kissing.

Adrien hid in the space between two storage cupboards of sorts, clumping handfuls of his overshirt as he tried to reign in his emotions, finding that he couldn’t.

Despite all the things Adrien had gone through, he was never one to cry in public, not one to carry his heart on his sleeve. Of course, as Chat he allowed to give way to his more rambunctious impulses, but he made a point of evading negative emotions as much as possible. Not even Ladybug had seen him cry, and that’s saying something. And yet, he found he couldn’t stop the uncontrollable sobbing that had taken a hold of him, which only got worse as he acknowledged the realization that had just dawned on him: He liked Kagami, yes. But he didn’t love her. More painfully, he had been in love with Marinette this whole time. That’s the reason why he wanted to be his friend so bad. Why he felt a distinct kind of affection and admiration for her that separated her from the rest of his friends. He had just been too blind, too stubborn, too fixed on Ladybug to even see she was there. Though if he was honest, a part of him always knew. Perhaps not in an articulate way, but he knew. He could be daft, but even a broken clock is right two times a day. He had been in her room as Chat Noir, witnessed how his face was practically plastered everywhere. He had spotted her signature on the scarf he thought had been a gift from his father. He knew that it had been her handwriting on that Valentine’s card, not Ladybug’s. He had just been a little too good at ignoring everything, aided by his underdeveloped social skills. And now, the consequences were hitting him like a bullet to the chest.

He was in love in Marinette. And Marinette was not.

“Adrien? Are you here, dude? Adri–woah.”

Great. Nino had just found him.

He hid his face in the space between his legs and his chest, trying his best to reel in his crying.

“Hey… hey, bud. What’s wrong?”

Adrien tensed at the feeling of Nino’s hand on his shoulder.

In his most rehearsed politeness, he said among hiccups, “Pl–please leave me alone, Nino. I–I’m fine, I just need a minute.”

“What do you mean you’re fine?” Nino replied. “You’re crying your eyes out! You’re most definitely not fine, dude.”

“Please…”

“Adrien, what happened? Did you fight with Kagami?”

Adrien shook his head. “I’ll be right back, okay? I just need a minute to compose myself.”

Nino plopped down in front of him, determinedly cross-legged. “No, I’m going to stay here until you calm down. We’re in a ship and I don’t want you getting any ideas. Blondes don’t float any better in the Seine, contrary to popular belief.”

A chuckled escaped Adrien among his quiet sobbing. “I’m not suicidal, Nino…”

“Coulda fooled me.” Nino crossed his arms stubbornly.

Adrien took a few deep breaths, hoping to get ahold of his irrational pain.

“You wanna talk about it?” Nino asked a while after he calmed down.

Tears sprung again. “I’m too embarrassed to say it.”

“If you wanna talk about it, I won’t judge. You know me.”

Adrien sniffed, looking at the ground and unable to face Nino. “I– I just…” He lost his grip again, but pushed through, hoping that if he could word it out he’d feel better. “It’s just I had been in love with this girl for the longest time and she– she doesn’t love me like that. And I— I get it. I get why. I know we’re never going to be together, I accepted it but then I was just… I started dating Kagami because I thought I loved her and being with her would help me move on but… I-I don’t, Nino. I try to love her but I just I can’t–” He gasped for air. “And I feel horrible because she doesn’t deserve that. But I also can’t just break up with her because my dad’s expecting me to stay with her. And her mom, and Kagami herself an–and everyone’s always expecting me to _do _something. It’s too much pressure!” He sobbed. “And the worst part is that I just realized I love Marinette and I couldn’t figure it out until I saw her with Luka. I know it sounds messed up but– I’m just– I can’t help I’m messed up like this. I can’t— I can’t…”

As Adrien continued to cry, Nino pulled him into a steady hug.

“First, you’re not messed up. Second, you don’t have to do something you don’t want to do.”

Hearing the reassuring only made Adrien more of a mess. “But I do. My dad, he–”

“Your dad’s an abusive asshole and I would literally file for your custody myself if I wasn’t your age,” Nino said sourly, pulling away from him. “Let me say it again, you _never _have to do something you feel uncomfortable with, Adrien. It doesn’t matter what it is, okay? A photoshoot, an interview, a relationship. No one can force you.”

Adrien gasped with a shaky breath.

“But–but he’ll lock me up again if I don’t do what he says and I–I don’t want that.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Nino muttered, hugging his friend again, if only to reassure him. “If that happens, I swear by god I’ll have the Paris police force, the army, and Ladybug and Chat Noir knocking down the door.”

Adrien clung to Nino desperately and after a while, managed to calm down again.

“Now,” Nino continued. “That doesn’t mean you can’t do something about how you’re feeling. In fact, you _can, _and you should something about it.”

Adrien gave Nino a perplexed look. “What should I–.”

Nino held up his hand to stop him. “Before you ask, what do you think you should do?”

Adrien fell into a pensive silence and after a moment of reflection, painstakingly admitted, “I have to break up with Kagami.”

Nino nodded.

“And… tell Marinette how I feel.”

Nino tried his best not to react negatively to that last part, considering the delicate position of Adrien’s mental state.

“I agree that you should break up with Kagami. Everyone deserves to be loved in the best way possible and it’s selfish to keep her hanging just because you don’t want to hurt her feelings,” Nino said. “But Marinette… Bud, think about it for a moment. _Think _about what your actions can cause.”

Adrien pondered, consequences rushing into his mind too fast for him to grasp them. He shook his head. “But I– I love her,” he insisted.

“I know, man. But riddle me this,” Nino said patiently. “What does it mean to love someone?”

Adrien reflected silently for a good while.

_It means to respect their wishes,_ he thought. _It means to not push to get your way when they have established a boundary,_ he remembered from his experiences with Ladybug. _It means to honor your word, to not lie_… He suddenly found himself assaulted by a series of memories where Marinette had been kind, patient, forgiving with him: When she decided to give him a second chance even though she thought he had bullied her, when she gave him advice on how to date Kagami, when she actually went on said date with him because he was too clueless about how to manage, when she gave him space once he had decided to start a relationship, when she personally convinced his father to let him go to New York… Every time she encouraged him, consoled him, made him laugh, assured him.

_It must have hurt her so much,_ he thought. _If she had feelings for me throughout all of that, it must have been so hard for her and yet she was always so kind, and caring, and patient, and_— Tears were slowly rolling down his face again.

“Love means to sacrifice what you want in favor of what its best for the other person,“ he muttered to no-one in particular. He sighed and looked down. “Thanks, Nino.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket after a moment of silence. “I don’t think I can go back to the party though. Will you stay here until George comes to pick me up?”

“Of course. I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

Luka was so close she could smell his scent, Marinette noticed with a twinge of alarm as they danced with the crowd. But unlike her, if he was thrown off by the proximity, he didn’t show it. Cool as ever, Luka seemed unfazed. If anything, he simply couldn’t take his eyes off Marinette. Staring at them gave Marinette impression that he forgot the world around him even existed.

He gave her a flushed smile as she snaked her arms around his neck. With a bit of hesitation, he reciprocated the gesture by gently pulling her into him. Marinette gasped and held her breath with anxious anticipation.

Luka seemed suddenly stunned by the shrinking distance between them, as if he had suddenly remembered something. Whatever it was, it may have frozen him but not did not deter Marinette.

Before he could brace himself, he felt her soft, warm lips resting on his own. He let himself enjoy the moment, if only to be violently yanked back into the reality that he was actually not just kissing Marinette, but Ladybug.

He gasped and abruptly broke off the kiss. “I– I… I’m sorry, Mari. I should’ve–”

Marinette quickly jumped to conclusions before giving Luka the chance to properly explain himself. His reaction, however unrelated, had been all too familiar to those of Adrien, even worse, those of _Chat_.

She found herself fighting back tears and the feeling of having her heart broken yet again, of having her feelings unreciprocated. It was too much, she decided. She couldn’t take it, not again. Not from Luka.

She ran away while Luka was still struggling to form coherent sentences. Luckily, he registered the fact he needed to run after her quick enough that he wouldn’t lose track of her.

He caught up with her a few blocks away from the ship.

“Mari!” he pleaded. “Please, wait! Marinette!”

He managed to get a hold of her wrist, successfully beckoning her to stop.

Regrettably, Marinette was already crying. “Leave me alone!”

“Mari—”

“No! You’re just like _him_!”

Luka found himself wondering if she meant Adrien or Chat Noir, simultaneously noticing they were calling the attention of passers-by. He pulled her into a service alley that was just around the block, for the sake of privacy.

“You didn’t let me explain,” he said, anxiety evident in his otherwise calm voice. “You–you… You’re amazing, Marinette.”

“Then why did you say ‘sorry’?” she said, still sniffling.

Luka panicked for a second, wondering if he should come clean about what he knew. Somehow, he knew that if he told Marinette he knew about her secret identity, he’d lose her on the spot. After all, he had been giving her advice and she never once even hinted at the fact she wanted him to know what she was talking about. That added to the fact that he _knew _Ladybug and how absolutely adamant she was about not letting other people know your identity. Word on the street was that was the reason Chloe Bourgeois eventually ended up akumatized in the Loveater battle: because Ladybug had decided to put Queen Bee out of circulation, and she couldn’t take the disappointment. Now, most of his fellow superheroes actually _wanted _to keep being superheroes for as long as possible, but he didn’t really care for it. It was nice that Ladybug–Marinette–deemed him worthy enough to rise up to the challenge, but truth be told, if it ever came a time where Marinette decided he wasn’t cut for it anymore, he actually wouldn’t mind. Contrary to the belief some of the other wielders seemed to have, being a superhero wasn’t a game, it was a job. And a very risky one at that.

So no, it’s not that he was afraid Marinette wouldn’t give him a Miraculous again. He was afraid that she’d choose to not be with him because of what he knew, and she wouldn’t give him a chance to prove that he was trustworthy enough to keep the secret. But he should tell her. He knew he had to tell her. And yet, in a moment of weakness, the fear of losing her won over him.

“I just… panicked.”

Marinette looked at him with a confused, pained expression.

“I panicked because you… you kissed me. You’re this amazingly brave, intelligent, beautiful girl who has no business pairing up with a weirdo like me and I–.”

“Don’t do that,” Marinette interrupted him, looking serious. “Don’t put me on a pedestal. I’m not perfect and there’s no reason why I wouldn’t want to be with you, Luka. You… you’re awesome, too.”

Luka sighed, relieved. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t want to mess things with you… Plus, I never said you were perfect, you’re also a little weirdo,” he said, booping her nose with his index finger.

Marinette chuckled; tears now forgotten. “Then I guess we can be weirdos together.”

With that, Luka pulled her close to him and continued where they had left off back on the ship’s dance floor.

* * *

The Monday after the Couffaines’ party, Marinette could feel how the atmosphere in the classroom had changed. It had been no secret that Luka and she had kissed, and to add momentum to the gossip mill, it didn’t help that she had run off crying with Luka dramatically chasing after her. To the educated eye, that party marked the beginning of Luka and Marinette’s relationship. To an outsider, say for example the people from other classes who had also attended the party, it looked like Marinette had run off, allegedly confused because of her feelings for a certain blonde.

Adrien was no stranger to rumors. Being not one but two public figures, he knew better than to pay them heed. But the muttering, the slight glances at him, and the few sentences he had caught on the way to his classroom aggravated him in a way the occasional tabloid had never.

Kim and Ivan whistled and made flirty noises when Marinette and Alya entered the room, inadvertently and effectively irritating Adrien. He buried his nose in his Math book and disposed himself to pretend Marinette was not there.

Marinette pretended like she hadn’t heard her classmates’ teasing, but she had to admit it was a bit satisfying to have that kind of attention, especially in front of Adrien.

“So, he calls it the macaron mafia,” Marinette said, continuing the conversation she had with Alya, about how Luka always helped her sort her problems out. Adrien couldn’t help but tune in his ears as he pretended to be studying.

“That’s so cute,” Alya said. “But girl, what _is _actually the macaron mafia?”

She laughed. “It’s nothing. It’s just that um… I can’t really disclose all the details when we talk, so he said that I’m part of the macaron mafia because I’m always handing out free macarons to everyone.”

Alya laughed.

“He calls my parents’ bakery the ‘laundering operation’”

“What a dork.” Alya chuckled, “I never took Luka for the funny kind.”

Marinette shrugged, a light blush creeping on her cheeks. “He’s just a bit shy about it.”

“You two are the same, I swear,” she said, shaking her head. “Girl but what actually do you talk with him about that you can’t tell anyone?” Alya asked.

Marinette smiled. “You’ll have to wait until we go to my house.”

Alya scoffed, faking to be offended. “Mari come onnnn! You know how curious I am! This is literally the cruelest thing!”

Marinette laughed. “All good things come to those who wait. Besides, there might be ears on the walls.”

A few class periods after, Marinette caught herself swearing at her knack for jinxing her own plans. Once, just once she wanted to have her day go exactly as she planned. That plan being, uneventfully end the school day, go home with Alya, have lunch, go to the balcony, and reveal to her that she was Ladybug.

Instead, their Chemistry class was interrupted by an Akuma which scattered the class as it managed to bring down half the school building, causing a fire in the process and trapping Alya and Marinette in said fire.

The wall that faced the street had caved in while debris blocked the door to the hall. The fire was a few doors down in the room where the emergency generator was, but by the way the temperature steadily increased, it was nearing them.

“LADYBUG! CHAT NOIR! PLEASE HELP!” Alya shouted at the top of her lungs. “We’re in here!”

“Alya!” Marinette screamed to catch her attention. “Alya, listen to me. You have to calm down, okay?”

“Marinette we’re about to die!”

“It’s gonna be okay. Chat Noir will be here soon. But I _need _you to calm down.”

Alya assumed a perplexed silence, if anything, confused by her friend’s sudden bout of level-headedness. She sighed. Few things annoyed Marinette more than an Akuma ruining her plans. “I was going to wait until later but seeing as this is an emergency…”

“_What _are you talking about?” Alya said desperately, hearing how the fire began licking the room next door.

“Let’s focus on getting out of here first, okay?”

Just before Alya had an opportunity to keep asking questions, Marinette transformed right in front of her. Alya sucked in a gasp and remained stunned for the duration of the rescue.

“Lucky Charm!” Ladybug exclaimed, summoning the swarm of ladybugs which handed her an axe. For once, it was clear that it was meant to cut down the door that had been blocked.

“What is–”

The building grumbled, threatening to cave.

“No time.” She rushed to the door and started whacking the axe as hard as she could. Suddenly, the whole door was consumed by thick, gurgling black bubbles which disintegrated the door in an instant.

“Get out, get out!” Chat Noir urged. “Ladybug? What–” He shook his head. “Is that all of you?” he asked with a certain panic in his voice. “Where’s Marinette? She’s not with her class, her teacher sent me to get her and Alya!”

“Marinette managed to run, she must be hiding somewhere else” Alya cut in, with almost too much ease. They fled the building just in time before it collapsed.

In the distance, they saw what seemed to be a fire themed Akuma.

Alya could’ve sworn the pair of heroes cursed under their breath as they took in how the Akuma had turned Paris into one of hell’s branch offices. Knowing what she knew, she could have found it slightly amusing, if it weren’t for the fact the whole of Paris was burning worse than an Australian wildfire.

“Go take cover,” Ladybug told Alya, who nodded and fled the scene.

“Wait!” Chat Noir said, yanking Ladybug’s yoyo midair to prevent her take-off. “We need to recharge,” he said, pointing at the polka-dotted ax she still carried.

“Good call.” She released the miraculous object, and with it, the school stood back again.

“I’ll meet you at the top of Tour First,” said Ladybug before finding a place to detransform.

Half an hour later, the mayhem had been reverted and as it was dictated by the “Parisian Mental Health Protocol”, school had been cancelled for the rest of the day. When Marinette returned she found Alya sitting pensively at the front steps. She approached meekly; in stark contrast of the confidence she had shown just before.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

Alya looked up and blinked a couple times. She looked at Marinette in silence for a while, then simply got up and gave her the tightest hug she could.

“You are _so _dumb sometimes!” Alya said, releasing a bit of a sob. “This makes so much sense. The way you were acting and everything, it wasn’t just Adrien, was it? And then just– wait, does Chat know?”

Marinette gave her a pained smile. “Let’s go to my house, we need to talk.”

The girls headed to the balcony armed with two canisters full of warm tea, comfy garden pillows, and fuzzy blankets. They talked for hours, well into the night. At times it was relieving, at times gruesome. Marinette cried, out of sadness, out of joy, out of utter relief. There came a moment though, when Marinette was all cried out, feeling drained and weak, but continued to answer Alya’s questions.

“So, just as Adrien had started dating, Master Fu left and then Chat Noir decided to give you the cold shoulder?” Alya recapitulated in disbelief.

“More or less, yeah.”

Alya shook her head. “Oh girl, I’m so sorry you had to do all of that alone. I get why you kept it a secret for this long, I just wish I could’ve helped you sooner.”

“It’s alright, Alya,” she said with a small smile. “Luka was tons of help, too.”

“Yeah, but blueberry boy has to earn seniority!” she joked. “Oh my god, does he know?”

Marinette laughed. “No Alya, no one knows. You’re the only one. But maybe, in time… I don’t know. Before we started dating, I was seriously considering telling him. He’s just such a great guy, he’s great at helping me clear my head. It’s like, he looks at the mess and when he explains it, it doesn’t sound as messy. But… I don’t know. Now that we’re dating, it could be risky.”

“I actually agree,” Alya said. “I mean, I bear no ill will to your relationship, I’m happy everything is working out between you two. But you never know what might happen in the future. What if you break up and then he’s akumatized?”

“Precisely.”

The next day at school, when Marinette arrived Alya was already there, as were her front-seat peers. It was easy to ignore them with the knowing look Alya gave her.

Marinette started laughing.

“This is not going to work,” she said. “I almost regret I told you.”

“Nah, you don’t,” Alya said grinning. “Also, we need codenames.”

“Codenames?” Marinette laughed. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“Yeah for the macaron mafia,” Alya said. “Having you going through almost two years of no gossiping about umm…” she pulled out her phone and showed her a picture of Chat Noir. “Is an injustice I’m not willing to be complicit of.”

“Oh, speaking of ”the mafia“,” she said, air quoting. “I got a project I’ve been putting off, but maybe you can help me with it. I have to–”

“Yes,” Alya interrupted ominously. “Whatever it is, yes.”

“Okay, so you have to go to the crack house to pick up five kilos of drugs, if you’re okay with that.”

Alya rolled her eyes with a smug smile. “Come on, what is it.”

“Well, there’s this uh… ‘safe house’, that ‘Mafia Boss’ left in my possession. It’s been lying around with a bunch of boxes and stuff I have to sort through since he um… ‘retired’. I didn’t want to do it alone and well; I was hoping that uh…” she signaled at the picture of Chat. “Would help me, but you know.”

“Oh my god, yes! Let’s do it!”

The bell rang, announcing the start of the day.

“Okay, I have one last question. I swear it’s the last, it’s just sheer curiosity. I’m not trying to ruffle your feathers or anything, it’s okay if you don’t want to answer.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Did you have a crush on Chat Noir?” Alya whispered as quietly as she could.

Marinette turned red with embarrassment. “I mean… It’s complicated,” she answered with an equally muted whisper, relief washing over her as she had no need to skim her answer and that for once, she could afford the luxury of being brutally honest. “Like, at the very, very beginning, yes. Big time. But I couldn’t say anything for obvious reasons. And you know what’s funny, he wasn’t that flirty when we first started. Then there was this one time when he really got me tongue-tied and I guess he just took a liking to bothering me since then. So, it was easier to ignore it. Then things got complicated like I told you yesterday, ‘cause then I got over it and I thought he was joking the entire time, so I’d flirt back, but then I realized it was for real that one time he came to visit me. But like I say, it’s complicated. I don’t have a crush on him anymore, but I do care about him and what he thinks of me. I actually asked him if he was okay with me telling about the macaron mafia to someone else before I even decided to tell you, so.”

“Yeah, of course,” Alya said, ending the conversation as Ms. Bustier came into the classroom.

Alya loved that Marinette had trusted her with such an important secret, and that she was helping her getting the support she needed. However, she couldn’t help but notice the way Marinette talked about Chat Noir was unlike the way she talked about any other guy she knew, unlike even Adrien and Luka. It wasn’t hard to see Marinette loved Chat very much. But then again, her friend didn’t exactly have the best record exercising common sense. Either way, she felt like it wasn’t her place to point that out. Especially not when Marinette seemed like she had finally achieved some peace of mind.

* * *

Adrien realized he really should stop eavesdropping on people’s conversations. If not out of respect, then at least in the interest of his own sanity. He had fallen into the distasteful habit of listening into Alya and Marinette’s conversations during class. For the most part, he never really managed to catch enough to know what they were talking about, but this time he almost wished he hadn’t heard.

First that nonsense of ‘the mafia’. Adrien didn’t know what it was but seeing as they were using pretty obvious codewords, they probably were talking about the times Ladybug had selected Marinette to wield a Miraculous. He huffed. First Kagami and now Marinette. What was it with people not being able to keep a simple secret?!

Then he caught Alya asking about a crush on Chat Noir and Marinette replying, ‘at the very beginning’, sounding like she knew him. It was confusing enough that he decided not to open that particular Pandora box. Whatever it was, he decided he did not want to know. He took his curiosity and shoved it to the deepest corners of his mind, instead deciding to focus on the French lecture Miss Bustier was giving–even if that meant his attention would inevitably gravitate to what he had decided to do that afternoon.

Kagami was waiting for Adrien on an outside table at the ice cream parlor where they usually met up. She wore a flowy white dress with a delicate red ribbon around her waist and waved happily at him as she saw him arrive to the table.

Adrien’s hands ached with anxiety as he approached and tried to keep his cool as Kagami stood up to greet him with a kiss.

“You’re early,” Kagami said. “I just ordered something for myself, I thought you’d be a while.”

“Heh,” Adrien laughed nervously and sat down.

“We really didn’t have to meet up today, though. I know you got that fashion show coming up. But it’s sweet that you wanted to, anyway.”

Adrien suddenly crumpled his brows in slight confusion. Why was she– Oh no. It was the twenty-third, wasn’t? Crap. It was the twenty-third! Kagami though they were getting together to celebrate their eight-month anniversary.

Just his goddamn luck. Maybe he could postpone it for next week.

_No. You said you were going to do it today. Today, Adrien. Not tomorrow, not next week. You can’t keep doing this to Kagami!_

“Actually, I was hoping we could talk?” he said, practically vibrating on his seat.

Kagami smiled at him. “Well, that’s what we’re doing, aren’t we?”

“N-no, I mean about… us.”

“Oh?” Kagami said, intrigued.

“Kagami, I’ve been thinking and… well… I–I don’t really know how to say this…”

The smile slowly faded away from Kagami’s expression. “What is it?”

“I…” His throat felt parched, his heart raced. Is this what an anxiety attack was? He wasn’t sure.

“Look, if there’s a problem we can just talk about it, no need to get so nervous,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Whatever it is, we can find a solution.”

Adrien shook his head and gently pulled away from Kagami’s grasp. “I–”

“Adrien, you’re scaring me. What is it?”

“We have to break up,” Adrien said quietly.

A thick silence sat between them. Adrien didn’t dare look up, but he knew Kagami was staring at him.

“What?” she said in disbelief.

“We have to break up,” he repeated, this time a bit louder.

“Wha-but why? Is it your dad? My mom can–.”

“No, it’s not that.” He paused to gather his courage.

“Then why?” Kagami repeated, voice faltering and tears threatening to overwhelm her eyes. “Look, I don’t know what I did wrong… But whatever it was, just give me a chance to make it right, Adrien. We–we can work through this. I’ll be better, I promise.”

“Kagami, it’s not your fault,” he said softly. “This has nothing to do with you. You did nothing wrong.” He finally looked up to reassure her.

“You are an amazing girl and I–”

“If I’m so amazing then why are you breaking up with me?” she demanded. “I thought we were doing okay.”

Adrien took a deep breath. “I love someone else.”

Silence cozied up in their conversation again, then Adrien spoke. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it, to sort out my thoughts. But now that I know for sure, I can’t, in good conscience, lead you on simply because I’m scared of hurting your feelings. You deserve to be loved, Kagami. I’m sorry.”

“Why can’t you see she doesn’t love you the way I do? She’s with Luka,” Kagami said desperately.

Adrien perked up, slightly irked by the comment. She had no way of knowing that the source of his heartache when they had started dating was Ladybug, so of course she meant Marinette. He bit his tongue to prevent a rude remark leave his lips, something about how being friends with Marinette apparently meant nothing to her since she went and pursued him anyway.

“That doesn’t change my feelings,” Adrien said in the gentlest way possible, trying hard not to snap. “Kagami, you’re not a consolation prize. It’s not fair for you to be with someone who can’t feel the same way you feel about them. And trust me… I _really _know how that feels. I know it hurts, a _lot_. But when we try to force our way, that pain sometimes makes us do things… things we won’t be proud of once we feel better. This is for the best, trust me.”

Kagami couldn’t stop crying. “I don’t understand what she has that I don’t.”

Adrien shook his head and tried to soothe her. “It’s not a comparison. You’re amazing in your own way, Kagami. And I care about you enough to know that staying with you while I knowingly love someone else would be a horrible waste of your time. I won’t do that. I hope you can–”

He saw the violet butterfly lodge in Kagami’s necklace.

“Oh no… Kagami, don’t listen to the voice! Don’t– Shoot!”

Hawkmoth took possession of Kagami almost immediately, transforming her in a sort of ghoul that cried loudly and had a fixed, haunting mournful expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'll be damned, TWO updates in one week? Yikes. IDK if I'm jinxing it, but this feels pretty cool.  
Also, thank you so so SO VERY MUCH to everyone who left all those lovely comments in the last chapter. I really don't have the words to tell you how much they make my day. Thank you for taking the time to share your reactions with me <3  
So yeah, if you liked this chapter let me know! (also if you had to pick some tissue in case of tears hahah >:P )  
See you next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> So yeap! There you have the first chapter. Thanks for reading and if you liked it, don't forget to leave a comment. Reading you guys always makes my day and it motivates me to keep writing :D 
> 
> Well, until next chapter! (Hopefully, sometime soon)


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